


The Doctor and the Magnate

by hypertensivehitachiins



Series: Brother, Lover, Doctor, Friend [2]
Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fast Cars, Gender Issues, Genderbending, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Marriage, Medicine, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Secret Identity, Sibling Incest, Twincest, Twins, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2017-12-27 12:13:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 80,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypertensivehitachiins/pseuds/hypertensivehitachiins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After battling an eating disorder, Kaoru is determined to be a doctor, and to cheat the system so he can be with Hikaru in the one way that matters. But how much of himself will he lose in the process?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Dark Horse

**Author's Note:**

> This story ties in loosely to my camp NaNoWriMo effort, "Brother, Lover, Doctor, Friend," also found in my profile. While this fanfic can be read independently, here's a brief summary of BrLoDrFr in case anyone's interested.
> 
> Kaoru developed an eating disorder as a means of dealing with his uncertainty about Hikaru's level of commitment, and the viability of their relationship long-term. When things got out of control, the twins' mother sent Kaoru to a clinic in the United States, where he would have been able to get better care than in Japan, where eating disorders receive less recognition. Hikaru faked an eating disorder and ended up going with him. Once there, a series of events pushed the twins to confront their demons and to be more up front about their feelings. As their relationship grew stronger, Kaoru was able to take the first steps toward recovery, and the twins devised a plan to cheat the system and become a real married couple. (The specifics of the plan will we revisited in later chapters, so I will not detail them here). In addition, the twins got to know their fellow patients at the clinic very well, and Kaoru discovered that he drew strength from helping others out of mental health crises. He ended up deciding to go to medical school so he could continue doing what he loved, and to someday start Japan's first eating disorder clinic.

AGE: 16, Fall of 2nd year in Highschool

Part 1: The Dark Horse

"Hitachiin? Kaoru Hitachiin? Who the heck is THAT?"

The question was, of course, rhetorical. By second year of high school, all the students at Ouran Academy knew everyone in their class almost too well, as many of them had been together since kindergarten. And yet, all the students had to do was pass exams to be guaranteed a place at Ouran University, and many had jobs at family companies waiting for them upon graduation. As a result, those who consistently ended up at the top of the class did so largely for personal reasons, were only a handful, and were well-known to everybody. In light of these circumstances, the Big Five - as this handful of students had come to be known - were staring with varying degrees of consternation at the bulletin board that listed the latest class rankings, most notably at the new name that had intercalated itself among theirs.

"He's one of those redheaded twins; their mother owns a luxury fashion brand," said Yuka Tayama, who never seemed to get any questions wrong on math tests. She was the only known girl in the Big Five if one didn't count Haruhi, who was universally recognized as a boy.

"I know who he IS," retorted Okamura, the boy who had been the first to express his dismay. "My question is why is his name up there?"

"Wait, which one is he again?" asked Marimoto, a boy whose every feature seemed to be as rotund and placid as that of a sitting Buddha. His family owned Japan airlines, and he was first in physics, though Kaoru had ended up right on his heels in second place.

"Does it matter?" Okamura shot back testily, "Fujioka, aren't you in that club with them? Do YOU know anything about this?"

"No, I don't, and I think you're overreacting," said Haruhi with a slight eyeroll. She was the only member of the group who had remained unshaken by Kaoru's move in the rankings – she knew the truth, but the twins had sworn her to secrecy. "For all we know it might be a fluke."

Okamura cast a doubtful look at her and chewed the insides of his cheeks.

"Ending up in the top five in one or two subjects is a fluke," he said. "Ending up in the top five in every subject and unseating ME in biology, overtaking you in social studies, and being right on Marimoto's tail in physics means something's up."

"And look, his brother's broken the top ten in seven out of eight subjects," said Kazukiyo Soga, who served as the Class Representative in student council. "That's never happened before."

"So?" Haruhi countered, clearly less than bothered by her alleged dethronement, "They might've had extra tutoring over the summer or something."

"Yes, but why would they?" Okamura insisted, "You don't need good grades to sew buttons in your mother's atelier…"

"Yeah, if I remember correctly they used to always play video games under the desks and never said a word in class," added Class Representative.

"People change," parried Haruhi. "Just because you're mad that there's new competition in town doesn't mean there's any reason to cry foul…"

"I'm not mad-"

"Guys!" - Yuka raised her voice over the clamor - "I think you're making too much of this. Why don't we just congratulate him and invite him to hang out with us?"

"Well, if by that you mean keep your friends close and your enemies closer…"

"No, Okamura, that's NOT what I meant. I just thought the twins have become much nicer since middle school, and I'm sure Kaoru will make a wonderful addition to our group."

"Yeah, maybe he'll have a thing or two to teach us if he's made such an impressive turnaround," said Marimoto, "Although we'll need to figure out which one he is first!"

"Fujioka can help with that, I'm sure." Class Representative smiled.

Okamura's skepticism was quickly overruled in a chorus of affirmation at the idea of welcoming the new kid on the block. But even as he fell silent he could not help thinking that extra tutoring was not all it took to make such a jump so quickly. After all, the twins had always been very much middle of the pack, with Kaoru hovering near the top fourth on good days. In fact, the Hitachiins were the infuriating sorts of pretty boys who seemed to skate through life on fine eyes and witty tongues, enjoying all it had to offer to the fullest. Of course, of COURSE, their nightly study sessions could never have been more than last-minute, mad dashes to the finish.

No, what Kaoru had accomplished required a total change in mindset, and motivation enough to break an iron rod over the knee. And although he spent much of his time around then, motivated people frightened Okamura. They frightened him far more than he was ready to admit. And at the end of the day, it simply wasn't fair. To the best of Okamura's knowledge, everyone in the Big Five was at the head of the class because they were either compensating for something, or had something to prove. Fujioka was a commoner on scholarship. Marimoto was third in line to inherit Japan Air despite a fanatic obsession with his family's business. Class Representative was afraid of everything -- failure included. And Yuka seemed determined to break every glass ceiling in the exact sciences - which made sense to Okamura: she had never been popular with the boys, and she came from a family that boasted two male Nobel laureates. But the twins had everything: half the girls in the school were in love with them, their futures were assured, they were well-adjusted, and if they had ever been outsiders, it was by their own choosing. What more could they want out of life - and wouldn't academic success in light of all that be almost too much honor? The only thing Okamura could think was that Kaoru was the second son - the first syllable of Hikaru's name was the same as his last name, something traditionally reserved for the first offspring. Perhaps Kaoru had grown tired of being second and decided to distinguish himself. Perhaps the twins had decided to compete between themselves, hence Hikaru's improvement as well. And yet, why on earth would they pick school of all things? Why did they have to tread on his territory when they already had so much of their own? Why did they have to threaten to take away the only thing that had ever set him apart?

…

"Kaoru, come to be-e-ed!"

Hikaru was sprawled over the covers and could feel his eyes shutting almost on their own accord as he demolished the last of the monsters in his handheld computer game - something he did every night to unwind from the day's ups and downs.

Kaoru looked up from his fortress of books and smiled, a little apologetically, over his shoulder.

"Hikaru, we've talked about this."

"Oh, come on, Mr. Dark Horse for Valedictorian" - Hikaru made a show of moaning with a chuckle - "Surely you can relax for one night and celebrate your success by falling asleep in your brother-slash-boyfriend's arms." It was after midnight, and the twins had had a steamy, soapy mutual jerkoff session in the shower, but when it was over Kaoru had gone right back to studying again, and was seated over his books in a bathrobe and with wet hair, the light from his desklamp the only one in the room.

"You've hit the nail right on the head, Hikaru," Kaoru laughed, taking up his pen again and turning back to his notes - a meticulous, color-coded grid complete with drawings and diagrams of the younger twin's own making. "It's because I'm the dark horse that I can't relax. After all those years of doing just enough to get by, I've got a lot of work to do in the near future if I want to stay on top and have a shot at med school."

Hikaru decided not to argue, and gathered up what was left of his strength to get up, walk over to where his brother was seated, and hug him from behind around the shoulders.

"Okay, Mr. Not-tonight-Josephine." He kissed the hair just above Kaoru's ear. "But just so you know: I love you, I'm very, very proud of you, and I never cease to be amazed by you. You're going to eat them alive."

Kaoru turned around and met Hikaru's eyes, and before a moment passed their lips met as well. As Kaoru moaned softly into the kiss Hikaru felt warm all over - between his legs included - even though his body was running on empty in every respect.

"Wake me up and kiss me when you come to bed, alright?" said Hikaru as they broke the kiss and the older brother brushed noses with the younger, contented smiles on both their lips.

"Okay, Hikaru. Fifteen minutes."

"Right," Hikaru rubbed his twin's shoulders before turning on his heel and heading back to the bed with a laugh. "See you at 4 a.m."

He settled under the covers, bunching them up to create a poor substitute for Kaoru's body next to his. Before they had determined that it was time for them both to start thinking about their futures, the brothers had spent nearly every waking moment together. But now that Kaoru had his sights set on medical school as a result of that summer's events, he seemed to have four hours of cram school or tutoring every day, and would dash off the moment Host Club was over. When he got home, he would excuse himself from supper as soon as it was humanly possible, and studied long after Hikaru could no longer keep his eyes open. Kaoru studied during lunchtime, too, and during breaks between classes, and even in the car as their driver conducted them to and from school. In fact, Kaoru studied so much he would fall asleep during class, and Hikaru had to poke him awake.

The older twin missed his brother, no question, but then again - it was not about him anymore. He was more than ready to support Kaoru in his new ambition, studying by his side and attending to his own needs like a good boyfriend when Kaoru was too swamped. But he could not help thinking - could Kaoru possibly have been… HAPPY? Could he possibly still think it was all worth it? It was not an easy adjustment to make - to go from Beautiful Boy With Too Much Time On His Hands to Serious Student. And there were those glimmers of sadness and anxiety that surfaced in Kaoru's eyes when he thought Hikaru wasn't looking. It broke the older twin's heart whenever he noticed. After all, what more could he do than make tea and offer lots of loving words, hugs, and backrubs?

Nonetheless, he couldn't help but admire Kaoru's tenacity, as he had also begun to study more so he could be around his brother. Once he did, it didn't take long for Hikaru to realize that it took no ordinary amount of motivation to go over and over things that were mind-numbingly boring, seemed to have nothing to do with anything, and refused to make sense until you wanted to scream and tear your hair out. The good news was, even when Kaoru wasn't saying a thing, and the only sounds punctuating the silence were the rustle of pages and the clicking of pens as he switched colors for the purposes of his notes, Hikaru did not feel lonely in his brother's company.

That said, of course, Hikaru also made good use of the time he was alone, poring over everything from design mock-ups to inventory spreadsheets with Yuzuha, and accompanying her when she held conference calls and meetings. She seemed to conduct business around the clock, so it was easy to fit into his schedule. Yuzuha's staff also seemed to like teaching him things, and everyone seemed happy to see that he wanted to learn the ins and outs of the company even though he was so young. At times, it was almost fun, especially when things came together and a finished product was hewn out of what felt like chaos. And he was certainly developing a new respect for his mother as he came to appreciate just how many strings she had to keep in her head. But much of the time his biggest efforts went into concealing the fact that he was terribly confused, overwhelmed, and furiously writing things down to look up or ask about in a safer setting. He didn't tell Kaoru - he didn't want to worry him. At least not yet, while Kaoru was getting used to his new lifestyle, and still considered himself to be playing catchup to the Big Five.

In fact - the Big Five. That was yet another thing to concerned about. At the end of the day, he could handle the fact that he and Kaoru did not spend as much time together anymore, as it made the time they did share all the more precious. He still enjoyed sitting next to a taciturn Kaoru wrapped up in his own world far more than he enjoyed doing anything by himself, and even discussing boring things like molecular structures or Riemann sums was not quote so dull if he was discussing them with Kaoru. But the day the results for the semester had come out, the Big Five had approached the twins and made it very clear that they wanted to talk to KAORU Hitachiin.

"Alright, so which one's Kaoru?" the twins had asked in unison, as was their custom. Hikaru had propped his chin on his hand with his best air of nonchalance, and Kaoru had quickly scanned the desk they shared for anything that might have been labeled with their names and would have given the game away. "Haruhi, don't help them."

"Okay, I won't," said Haruhi with her usual blend of bemusement and mild annoyance at what she had come to consider petty posturing on the twins' part.

"Well, Kaoru's the one who scored better on exams," said Yuka Tayama with a frank smile that suggested she found the question trivial. "Kaoru's the one who isn't Hikaru."

"And Kaoru's the second son," added the rotund Marimoto.

"Right, but WHICH ONE?" said Hikaru with a smile, softening his speech as he cast his eyes over all five representatives of the academic elite. "Point to him."

"And explain why you think so," added Kaoru, purposefully lowering the timbre of his voice half an octave just as Yuka opened her mouth.

"Yeah, don't just guess. That's too easy."

The honor students looked uncertainly at each other and then back at the twins. Marimoto mumbled something nobody could hear.

"Look," Class Representative spoke up, "I admit we have no excuse not to know which one of you is which after being in the same class with you for ten years…"

"Yeah, I'd say," Hikaru said, "Haruhi figured it out after a few weeks…"

"Hmm, I wonder" - Kaoru giggled - "How many honor students does it take… Besides Haruhi, of course - Haruhi's special."

Class Representative waited patiently for them to finish laughing.

"Well, we just wanted to congratulate Kaoru on his achievements," he said. "We're very impressed, and if Kaoru is ever in need of a study-buddy, he has a friend in any and all of us. And we're impressed with Hikaru too" - he added hastily. "Top ten is no small feat. Keep up the good work."

"Thank you!" the twins replied, their dimples mirror images, and Hikaru prayed that the chorus would conceal the twinge of pain in his voice. It seemed the honor students had a plan after all: by emphasizing that it was KAORU they wanted, they seemed to be trying to gauge which twin would be sadder or more offended in hopes of differentiating between them.

"And I'm sure Kaoru would be more than happy to accept your invitation" - Hikaru smiled emphatically at Representative - "But first you really must tell us which one he is."

"Yeah," said Kaoru, "It seems Kaoru's met the criteria to be in your club, but we've got our own criteria. Tit for tat, it's only fair."

"We'll give you two weeks. That's less than the time it took Haruhi, but there are four of you."

It seemed that they had bought themselves time, as the Big Five acquiesced to the conditions, but Hikaru was still worried. Now that Kaoru was a top student, would it mean that he would start making new friends and studying with new people, and their time together would be cut even shorter? Studying with another strong student was beneficial - he knew that much from his own experience. Kaoru's example right smack in front of his eyes always kept him on task. But would the honor students want to study with HIM, a lowly top-tenner? Indeed, they'd been quite emphatic in congratulating and inviting Kaoru, and Hikaru had been at best an afterthought.

And what if Kaoru really would want to study with someone who would pull him up and offer wisdom he didn't have, instead of stopping every two minutes to ask, "Wait, what? Can we backtrack a second?" Hikaru could, of course, solve the problem by gunning for the top five as well, but even if he worked as hard as Kaoru it was hard to imagine that he had what it took, and he didn't want to enter into direct competition with his brother. In fact, what if the Big Five had seen that they had both moved up in class rank and were trying to sabotage whatever synergy they might've thought was responsible? Heck, they'd certainly sabotage HIM if they took Kaoru away - far more than just academically.


	2. Shredded

AGE: 16, Fall of 2nd year in Highschool

Part 2: Shredded

Kaoru looked up from the page he had been skimming and blinked a few times, rolling his shoulders to keep them from growing stiff. The twins had a free period, and it was half-over. Soon the last bell of the day would ring, and they would head off to get ready for the Host Club. As had become their custom that fall, they had eschewed making the rounds of their friends to catch up on the latest gossip, or racing around the school grounds in the crisp autumn air. Instead, they settled in the library reading room - a large, airy hall with vaulted ceilings, tables of dark oak, and shelves upon shelves of leather-bound volumes reaching far out of sight. Hikaru had always felt a little out of place there, but now that he and Kaoru were well on their way to establishing themselves as serious students, he almost felt like he belonged, and the long rows of green secretary's lamps on the tables made him feel very collegiate.

As Kaoru embarked on his journey to medical school, Hikaru had become his biggest cheerleader. In fact, Hikaru was so impressed with him that the younger twin found it mildly annoying. For several years, Kaoru had suffered from bulimia, and having spent some time in a Hawaiian eating disorder clinic, he had decided he wanted to help others who suffered. In fact, being there for those who were in pain - and digging for pain - had quickly become something that soothed him and made his life feel worthwhile. But making that decision was one thing, and - Devil take it - what it actually took to become a doctor was quite another. In fact, many of the hoops he would have to jump through involved little to no healing, or empathy, or human connection of any sort. Just numbers, and facts, and mechanisms that resembled complicated tinkertoy constructions. It made sense, of course: helping those who were in pain was a great honor and a great responsibility. There was a lot to learn from the ground up before you could count yourself competent, and it only made sense that there would be many tests. Like in a martial art, many of them probably existed simply for the sake of developing the requisite strength of character.

But that did little to help Kaoru in coming to terms the fact that half the time he felt like an idiot. He had done well on the last set of exams, yes - but it felt like he'd had to work five times as hard as everyone else. There were definite gaps in his knowledge from prior years, when he had "learned" things for a test only to delete them from his memory because he never thought he'd use them. Now, those unfortunate decisions made everything take twice as long, as he had to stop every few minutes to forage in reference books and on the internet for additional explanations. In fact, he felt so bad about how painfully obvious it was that he was late to the go-getter party that he never asked any questions in cram school, always preferring to talk to his teachers privately or by email. Long story short - he wished he could tell his brother that just because he sat over his books until the seat of his pants threatened to disintegrate did not mean that he was "amazing" in any way. Just the opposite, in fact.

But Hikaru had looked up from his books as well, and was smiling his sweet, puppy-dog smile, as if to tell him for the umpteenth time how wonderful he was. Kaoru could not bear to shatter the illusion.

"Coffee?" the older twin said, his eyes catching a cool ray of sunshine that escaped from the clouds outside the window.

"Oh, God, yes." The younger twin had paused in his reading, in fact, because the three late nights he'd had that week were making themselves known: the lines on the page were starting to blur together, and he had been reading the same sentence over and over for the last minute. Thank goodness it was Friday - the next day, he'd get to sleep in for a whole hour, as cram school started at nine a.m. on Saturdays while regular school started at eight.

"Great, I was just thinking the same thing."

"Yeah. You'd take any excuse for a study break." Kaoru chuckled.

"Coffee's not a study break - coffee's what you need so studying doesn't break you." Hikaru got up and leaned in next to his brother as if to look at the diagrams he was perusing, planting a quick kiss on his cheek. "Though if you WANT a study break, that can certainly be arranged."

Kaoru's head spun a bit, and his stomach fluttered. Suddenly he felt very far away from his frustration with his brain for shutting down on him, and he had to catch his breath to keep himself from blurting out that a study break behind some particularly remote bookshelves would be just the thing to take the edge off. Over the past months, effective study habits were not the only thing the twins had developed. They'd also mastered the art of the quickie. Before, Kaoru had acquiesced to Hikaru's advances reluctantly, and only at bedtime. They had not been clear on where they stood and what it all meant, and the overly romantic thoughts that always followed the sessions made him want to hurt himself and vomit. But now that they were "official," Kaoru realized he quite liked getting naughty.

To that end, when they weren't studying, they were usually concealing the fact that they'd just jerked off together, or made out, or had been down each other's throats in quite another way. In fact, they'd done it nearly everywhere: in the Host Club changing room (which made for fireworks afterwards with the guests), in just about every boys' bathroom, in the locker room, and once in the back seat of the car with the divider up so that the driver couldn't see - although he probably heard everything. They even kept a private tally, just for a laugh, and Kaoru could not help but admit that it was definitely a better cure for anxiety than bulimia. The only thing was - he knew he had to limit their time together to established study breaks, rather than letting it become the reason to take a study break. Otherwise, they'd never get anything done.

"Get that coffee, and we'll see…" Kaoru allowed himself a small smirk as he used two fingers to lift his brother's hand off his shoulder to indicate that time was a-tickin'.

As he watched Hikaru walk away, glancing once or twice over his shoulder, Kaoru let his eyes drift shut. It was Friday, wasn't it? Surely it would be alright to take a five-minute cat-nap. In some circles, working so hard you fell asleep a your desk was even a badge of honor. And quite aside from that, part of true strength lay in knowing when you were too beat to continue.

…

In the weeks that followed the end of the first semester, Okamura had grown more and more obsessed with the twins. He had been disturbed by Kaoru's sudden appearance in the top five, but that was only the beginning. The fact that there were two of them - nearly indistinguishable and almost always speaking in unison - made the twins that much more frightening.

Plus, they always knew your name, but you never know theirs, giving them the upper hand in conversation. In fact… Who did they think they were, countering the Big Five's invitation with their own ultimatum, and making THEM, the honor students, feel stupid? The others seemed not to have paid it much mind, or approached it as a game, but Okamura had been stung. It simply wasn't fair. Just as before, the twins were riding - nay, power-tripping - on something they had had from birth: the fact that they WERE twins. They'd sat laughing at them, as if they had their own secret society, and that somehow put them above the rest. It reminded him, once again, how painfully ordinary he was in every respect, and how he had only ever gotten by on effort alone, like regular mortals.

If he could get Kaoru alone, he thought, he'd get a better chance at learning his secrets. If there was one of him, it would be far easier to knock him off his cloud. But the twins were never apart - literally never. They sat at adjacent desks, they walked everywhere side by side, they studied together during downtime, and they even went to the bathroom together. The teachers had never had to learn which one was which, because when one raised his hand, so did the other. It had become common practice for the lecturers to say, "Yes, Hitachiin brothers," and they answered in perfect unison. Okamura had tried to figure out which one was Kaoru by gauging which one seemed to know he what he was talking about when they conferred in whispers prior to volunteering an answer, but his seat was too far away and the method proved unreliable. Another potential clue was that one of the twins did seem to nod off in class on occasion, but was it fatigue or was it boredom? The other one always poked him awake, but was it loyalty or a sign of a type-A personality with no patience for slackers? Marimoto insisted that as the second son Kaoru HAD to have the higher timbre of voice, and HAD to be the second one to speak, but Okamura had told him to stop thinking in stereotypes. After all, the twins had insisted on their giving them a REASON, and who would observe a rule like "always speak second" outside of court ceremony? As for timbres of voice, that was even more unfounded, and testing that theory would require actually speaking to them - something Okamura was not ready to do.

The best he had come up with was to follow the twins whenever he could, trying to work up his courage. To that end, he had switched his schedule so he had the same free period them, and procured a pair of binoculars. That Friday afternoon in November, he sat holed up in the library a couple dozen feet away from them, at a table between two sets of shelves perpendicular to the wall. It was the perfect spot: it concealed him, but between the row of books and the shelf there was a convenient gap for spying.

He had just been thinking that if the twins were never apart he could observe them studying and glean something from their habits when he saw one of them get up and walk away, while the other…

Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. It was almost too perfect. Whether or not the one who remained was Kaoru, he suddenly saw a way to get his adversary back. Oh yes. He'd get him back and make him fall so hard he'd be hitting every snag on the way down. A once-over of the table a few minutes ago had given him the perfect target, and he felt blood rushing to his ears. He had five minutes give or take, depending on where the other twin had gone. The library was nearly deserted - it was Friday afternoon, after all. It was now or never.

Shaking, and barely able to feel his own legs, he got up, lifting his chair so it would not make any noise, and walked, rolling his feet to muffle the sound. Thankfully, the library had carpeted floors, but he was not taking any chances.

It was so easy. He picked up the notebook, a third of its pages covered in small, almost girlishly neat handwriting - taking care that the paper did not crinkle. The Hitachiin sighed and mumbled something in his sleep, but his eyes did not open. Okamura turned on his heel.

His mind was reeling, and for a few seconds he saw only the door, and how painfully slowly it was drawing near. His legs felt like lead, and he wondered if he'd ever get there.

And yet… There he was. Stepping into the hallway, he finally hazarded to glance down at what he had stolen, and for a moment felt a twinge of regret. The notes were truly excellent - they could have made an imbecile ace the test. And they were rainbow in color. He almost considered keeping them, but only for a moment. Then the anger surfaced again.

"Hey, what are you doing with those?"

Okamura looked up to find that the voice belonged to the other redheaded twin, who had appeared in front of him, double-fisted with two cups of coffee covered by traveler's lids.

"Your brother gave them to me," said Okamura quickly, shutting the notebook.

"My brother?" The Hitachiin looked skeptical. "What's his name?"

"Uh - Kaoru" - Okamura hazarded after a second. His eyes darted down to the cover, but the name was apparently written on the inside. Yet they must have been Kaoru's - they were too good not to be. And yet, was Kaoru indeed the sleeper? The notes had lain right smack in between the two brothers, and sleeping twin had been reading something else.

"I doubt he would've done that. They weren't his to give." The twin with the coffee countered with a smile that did not slip into his eyes. There was something suspicious about Okamura - Hikaru did not believe him, so he tried the first thing he could think of: to confuse him. It didn't seem likely that in the five minutes he had been gone Okamura would have made friends with Kaoru AND gotten him to share his notes - and even if he had, where was he taking them? There was a copy machine in the libra-

"OWW, FUCK!"

While Hikaru had predicted an unpleasant end to the conversation, he did not expect to get shoved quite so hard and quite so quickly, and to end up with scalding coffee all over his hands and sleeves despite lids he'd thought were tightly attached. As he dropped the cups with several more choice curse words, he saw Okamura disappearing down the hallway.

"Hey, come back here!"

He took off after the boy with the notes, and had almost caught up with him when the latter changed directions, darting into a service stairwell. Hikaru got there a second too late, and lost another second in checking if Okamura had gone up or down. The two ended up on another floor, and Okamura zigzagged yet again, turning a corner when Hikaru least expected it. When the twin caught up, the hallway was deserted, and then he heard the sound of a paper shredder.

He dashed in the direction of the sound, but it was too late. Okamura stood over the device, stationed next to a printer in the small computer lab, and his brother's notes were disappearing into the slot. Hikaru leaped across the room, pulled the plug, and the machine ground to a halt with an angry sputter - but it was too late. The pages were than half-consumed, and the surviving half was warped grotesquely as it stuck out of the blades.

"You…. BASTARD!"

Okamura looked up at him with a triumphant smile, though his hands were shaking.

Hikaru felt like dying. Like he'd been thrown into a deep, dark, Medieval cellar to rot without a trial. What would Kaoru say? What would he DO? If he had only gotten there a second sooner; if he hadn't insisted on getting that goddamn coffee…

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA," the older Hitachiin all but roared, "HOW LONG THOSE TOOK TO MAKE?! YOU ASSHOLE!"

He crossed the distance between him and the kneeling Okamura, and grabbed him by the collar so hard the latter nearly choked. And yet, the brown-haired boy looked perfectly nonchalant - as if completely indifferent to his fate now that the deed was done.

"Well, that'll teach you to stick your hoity-toity designer label name where it don't belong." He gave Hikaru a thin, sealed smile. "I'd stick with nancing around in your little Host Club, pretty boy." Now that he felt he had the upper hand, he let his voice seethe with all the venom he had in him.

"You know I won't let this go, don't you?" Hikaru was still glaring. "There's no way you'll get away with this. I'll tell everyone."

"Oh, really?" Okamura laughed. "Well, gee, it's your word against mine. It's last period on Friday and the place is deserted. Who's to say you didn't shred your own notes and pin it on me to try and sabotage me?"

"Well, I do, for one" - they heard Kaoru's voice above them. "And that's my notebook, Okamura. I'm the one you're after."

"Kaoru-" Hikaru let go of Okamura's at the sight of his brother and looked down, feeling like the scum of the earth again. He did not dare raise his eyes. "I'm… So… Sorry… Kaoru… I couldn't…." His voice broke as the whorls of the hardwood floor grew blurry and he felt a stinging in his throat.

"That's okay, Hikaru." The younger twin knelt down and touched his hand. "It's not your fault."

"Yeah, well you two are like a married couple," Okamura retorted, dusting himself off as he got up. "Everyone knows you'll never testify against each other."

"Yeah, well, then there's also me." Haruhi stepped around the doorframe. "I saw Hikaru chasing you."

"And me too," said Class Representative, following suit, his shoulders hunched sheepishly. "I was in the library. I saw Kaoru wake up and freak out that his notebook was gone. But when Hikaru left he was empty-handed."

"Give it up already, Okamura," said Haruhi, throwing the boy a disdainful look. "We all know you had it in for Kaoru from the beginning."

…

"You know, I really ought to expel you," said the Dean of Students as she surveyed the group of second-years severely. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Okamura. Sabotaging another student like that - we don't stand for that at Ouran."

Okamura stared at the carpet with all the attitude of a beaten dog. Haruhi, the twins, and Class Representative flanked him on either side, the last looking a little apologetic and avoiding his friend's eyes.

"But your dad's on the board, so I'm going to suspend you for two weeks and tell him myself. You will not be able to make up missed assignments or exams."

Okamura's bottom lip quivered and his face spasmed against the tears. Class Representative caught his friend under the armpits just in time as he was about to sink to the floor.

"You should count yourself lucky," the Dean said, unimpressed by the show of emotion.

Hikaru and Haruhi looked over at Kaoru and saw that he was staring at the floor, his body language almost mirroring Okamura's.

"That's a harsh punishment," he said, "And I'm sure it'll teach Okamura a lesson, but it won't bring my study guide back. I should've made copies or something. Or made it on the computer."

"Nonsense, you shouldn't be expected to change the way you study because you're worried about security," said the Dean, her eyes sympathetic. Hikaru put a hesitant hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Yeah, and they were pretty kickass notes - I don't think you can DO some of that stuff on the computer very easily," Hikaru said, indignant. He had refrained from saying much because he could not face down the fact that he had failed Kaoru, no matter how much the latter insisted to the contrary. But Kaoru blaming HIMSELF was too much. "We were even planning to share them with whoever asked. Now nobody'll get to see them, no thanks to stinker-san over there."

"Don't worry," said Haruhi. "You can use my notes. And we'll help you."

"Yeah," added Representative, "You've already made your study guide, and that's a form of studying in itself. So you're farther along than you think."

Kaoru gave then both a thin, sealed smile. They were being kind, of course, but what they didn't know was that making study guides was a very personal process for him, and harder than anyone realized. In fact, it was a translator's work and a researcher's work rolled into one as he painstakingly grouped information in ways that made sense to him, and reframed things in his own words. Were he to use Haruhi's notes, he might have to do as much "translating" as he did the first time around. And the colors - he needed his colors - whereas Haruhi's notes were always monochrome.

The Dean reached for the "evidence" - the paper shredder, which stood on her desk. She took the functional part off the wastebasket and raised it up to examine the damage. The shredded halves of the pages hung in strips from the blades, which had been stopped midway in their progress. The strips, for the most part, still lay next to each other, the characters almost lining up just as they had when they were part of the same sheet. The cuts were corrugated, but nothing that a careful twice-over with coin couldn't smooth out. She then looked at the contraption from above, where the parts that had been spared were still attached.

"I may have an idea," she said after a few moments of examination. "Okamura, if you can take these notes out of the shredder and tape them together so they're still legible, I will cut your suspension in half. Hitachiins, you can have a two-day extension in studying for your next test regardless."

Representative was still holding Okamura by the elbows, and the latter sank further to the floor as his knees buckled.

"But… That's-" he all but croaked.

"The best deal you'll see for a while," said the Dean with a cool smile. "I'd take it if I were you, Mr. Okamura."

…

Okamura was stationed at a desk in the waiting area adjacent to the Dean's office, where he was to work on reconstructing Kaoru's notes with the aid of a roll of clear tape, a coin, and a screwdriver. No one was allowed to help him and the Dean's secretary was charged with staying late to oversee his work - but Kaoru hung back and so did Hikaru, having asked Haruhi to tell the Host Club to start without them. The twins took a seat on the waiting room couch at the other end of the room, and Hikaru kneaded his fingers wordlessly into his brother's shoulders. The younger twin stared dispassionately out the window. The gray afternoon light slanted through the trees, and the wind chased the leaves that had once adorned them down the paths of the quad.

"Hey, how're you feeling?" Hikaru whispered as he planted a hesitant kiss where his hand had been. He was coming to terms with the fact that he had failed to rescue the notes, but still worried about saying the wrong thing.

"Okay - uhh… thanks." Kaoru looked back at him and it was clear he wanted to smile, but could not. He would be alright - of course he would. It could have been worse: it could have been the end of the semester, and fifty pages of notes instead of fifteen, and then they might have been in real trouble. "Thanks for being there. Really," he added, catching his brother's eyes. "And don't blame yourself."

After half an hour of feeling like he'd been beaten and left for dead, and so sorry for himself it was difficult to breathe, Kaoru's helplessness was starting to dissolve. Perhaps it was Hikaru's hands on his back; perhaps it was something else, and he still felt dull inside, and empty, and far from hopeful. But suddenly it seemed like the pressure cooker he'd been living in had turned off, and all he could think - with vague detachment - was that life was long even if the days were short: that at least nobody was dead, and it would work out, somehow. The tightness that had seized up his shoulders again and again ever since the ordeal began was dissipating under Hikaru's hands.

"I'm just sorry you had to go through that." The older twin had taken up channeling his frustration at himself by working his fist harder into his brother's muscles. "All you're trying to do is some good in the world. It's not fair. You haven't done a thing to hurt anyone. What kind of a person would want to sabotage YOU?"

"You know, I was wondering the same thing. A happy person wouldn't do something like that." Kaoru paused as he watched the wind make small whirlpools of leaves around the legs of a bench far below. "Something's hurting him."

"I'd say!" replied Hikaru, rubbing vigorously on either side of Kaoru's spine as the latter arched his back. "He's just lucky *I* haven't gotten around to coming over there and hurting him."

Kaoru turned around quickly and put his hand on his brother's arm, suddenly looking marginally more alive.

"I'm gonna go over there," he whispered. "I want to talk to him. You stay here."

"Kaoru, NO! What do you want to talk to him for - he's an asshole!"

"There's nothing more he can do to me, Hikaru," the younger twin said. "I just want to see what he's all about, okay? Maybe get some answers."

Hikaru slumped back into the couch and looked at his brother with grudging amazement. They were very different after all, and this was only the latest in a long string of evidence. Were he in Kaoru's shoes, he might have destroyed everything and everyone in sight until vengeance was visited tenfold on those who were at fault. In fact, he had been repressing the urge to do just that for the last hour, lest the Dean suspend him as well. No one else knew just how much blood, sweat, and tears Kaoru had been pouring into his studies. But Kaoru seemed as serene as a Hindu cow, now that the pain of the katakori** was gone from his face. And he was actually wondering about the feelings of the one who'd done him wrong.

(**a "cultural syndrome" unique to Japan, usually manifests itself as shoulder and upper back pain, commonly attributed to stress and overwork)

"Alright, I'll be here if you need me," Hikaru said firmly.

Kaoru gave his brother a small, reassuring smile, and walked over to the secretary's desk, a few feet away from Okamura's.

"I just want to talk," the younger Hitachiin said to the secretary, gesturing at Okamura, who had just extracted the notebook from the shredder's jaws and was looking at the mauled pages with an attitude of utter despondency. "I won't help him. Those are my brother's notes" - he lied - "and I'm as invested in Okamura's punishment as anyone."

"Alright. I'll be watching," replied the secretary gravely, punching a set of holes in a stack of papers with a degree of extra violence for emphasis. She was a young girl, barely out of university, with chic glasses and a straightlaced haircut aimed to make her look more mature. She seemed a touch frustrated that Okamura's punishment had inadvertently extended to her as well. "Don't distract him too much, either."

"I won't." Kaoru gave her a soft smile and sat down opposite Okamura, who looked emphatically down when he caught sight of the twin's shadow.

"I'll have you know I'm immune to gloating," he said bitterly.

"That's not why I'm here. I just wanted to ask something."

Okamura sniffed as he picked up the hundred-yen coin and started to smooth out the edges of one of the strips.

"What's bothering you?" said Kaoru.

Okamura looked up in unfeigned surprise.

That bastard. That little snake. The twin sat looking at him with hardly a trace of an expression, just… waiting and watching, as a good tutor might wait for a student to figure out a question before giving feedback. Okamura couldn't be sure which twin it was, of course, and it really didn't matter. Because not only was the Hitachiin just as much of a bishonen up close - for this was the closest Okamura had sat to one of the twins in recent memory - he also had to go and turn be KIND and CHARITABLE. Or he was pretending to be, which only added insult to injury.

"Are you kidding?" Okamura scoffed. He gestured at the desk in front of him. "I'm in about as much shit as I've ever been in in my life. I'll probably fall so behind it'll take me the rest of the year to get back to where I was, I'm stuck doing this for the next 24 hours, and my parents will probably ground me for the rest of my life. And you're asking me what's bothering me?!"

"No, I'm asking you what was bothering you so much that you went and did what you did."

Okamura's fingers balled into fists, one of them around the piece of tape, as he stared at the notes on the desk. Kaoru could not see his eyes, but he was fairly sure that he had a mind to shred the strips of paper so finely that no one would ever be able to piece them together again.

"I'm in LOVE with you two weirdos, alright," Okamura spat bitterly. "But spitballs and hitting you over the head with a book bag went out of style in middle school, so I had to come up with something else - NOW GO AWAY."

Kaoru did not reply, but a few seconds passed and it became clear that he wasn't about to go anywhere. Okamura looked up at him, trying to hide the desperation rising inside him. If the twin was demoralized at all, he did not show it. In fact, where HE, Okamura, might have been curled up in a ball in some corner if HIS notes had been shredded - or furiously trying to recreate what was lost - this boy was HERE, with HIM, asking strange questions to goodness knew what end.

"You're… Kaoru, aren't you?" he asked.

"Why do you say that?" The twin gave a hint of a smile.

"Because… " It takes an extraordinary person to pull up to the head of the class so quickly, and it takes an extraordinary person to reach out to me this way after what I'd done - he wanted to say. But it sounded so silly. And at the end of the day, it was just a feeling. "Because there's something about you. I have no idea what it is, but I think the reason you ended up at the head of the class is the reason you're sitting here right now."

It still infuriated him, of course, but it was the only explanation he could think of. Indeed, the boy across from him seemed to have motivation and no mistake! He had motivation enough not only to do things he, Okamura, never thought possible, but also to see the big picture and get buoyed up by it despite the worst of everyday setbacks. It was the only possible explanation for his eery calmness. He had a Purpose - a purpose that made it seem like he had one foot somewhere far away already.

"Well, you're right," said the twin. "I am Kaoru."

"Kaoru, why did you have to try for the top five? Why did you have to tread on my territory?" Okamura blurted out the words before he knew what he was saying, and was surprised by the pain that came through in his voice. The exhilaration at having cracked the Hitachiins' riddle had turned his head a little - at last, the twins had ceded their united front of Kafkaesque opacity, and it was no longer two against one, a much fairer fight.

"Your territory?" Kaoru asked. It wasn't an accusation - not even an expression of dismay or indignation. Just - a clarification.

"Yes." Okamura looked down, suddenly sheepish. "I've always been in the top five. For as long as I can remember. Longer than anyone else."

"Well, if you've been there longer than anyone else, what makes you so worried about me? Clearly, you've been able to hold your own against all sorts of bright, motivated kids. What makes me any different?" He smiled, showing a small dimple just to the left of his chin. "Or do you shred everyone's notes as a rite of passage when they climb up the rankings?"

Screw him.

In half a minute less than no time, the Hitachiin had gone from ceding ground to hitting right at the heart of the matter. The boy was good. Okamura felt naked and helpless, and a vague fear stirred in him again.

"I…" - want to know why you did it… No. That wouldn't do. The bastard was too good at sidestepping direct questions. "It's… Because you appeared in the top five out of nowhere," Okamura said after a moment. "That's never happened before. I feel like there's something different about you." Something… frightening.

The twin let his mouth flicker into a smile, though his eyes remained soft and calm as ever, like two clear pools.

"What do you want out of life, Okamura?" he asked after letting the silence sit, thick and globulous like a clump of clay between them.

"W-what?"

"I mean, what makes you do what you do? What makes you get up in the morning? What do you want to BE?"

The long-established honor student stared at Kaoru across the desk, and the wind whistled past the French windows, bringing a few crusted leaves with it.

"I… want to be an honor student."

Kaoru smiled. "But you won't be in school forever. What do you want to do afterwards?"

Yes, that was just the trouble, wasn't it? He'd never had a reason for doing what he did, and being first in his class had never been more than an end in itself. It was something he had simply decided one day after realizing he had little else going for him. And truth be told, no one besides him had cared, really. The teachers sensed he was type-A but less interested in the material for its own sake, so they left him alone. His parents saw him studying until all hours and wondered if it wasn't better that he go out and make connections that would serve him well in the future. But he had never been any good at socializing. Indeed, boys did not care for him and girls never looked at him. Why would they? When he tried sports he was abysmal, and he had no other discernible talents. What did he want out of life? He did not know. The years after high school and college had always been a blank slate - in a gray, cheerless sort of way.

"I don't know - what do YOU want to do afterwards?"

"I can't talk about it yet, but I know I don't want to work for my family's company - I'll leave that to my brother. It's not that that wouldn't be a great opportunity, I just think that there are other ways in which I can help the world."

Okamura stared at him as silence fell again. Now that Kaoru had said what he said, all his suspicions were at once confirmed and rendered lightyears less scary. Now, he simply struggled to wrap his mind around how alien a being Kaoru seemed to be. After all, even though everyone in the Big Five had their reasons for being on top, at the end of the day they were self serving ones - or at least that was how Okamura understood them. But Kaoru seemed to be thinking in quite another dimension. He saw the future, and he saw the world: things that had always seemed extremely hazy to Okamura. And he seemed quite ready to walk away from what he had, which took guts if nothing else. No, it was all gone - lost. There was no hope of defeating him when he wasn't even on the same level. If the same things didn't seem to matter to him.

"I think if you figure out what really moves you and where you want to end up, things'll get easier and it won't hurt anymore. We're all uniquely positioned to do something special just by being at Ouran. We should help each other."

Kaoru felt a hand on his shoulder, and knew it was Hikaru's.

"I think it's time to go, brother," Hikaru said, casting a distrustful glance at the boy across from them. "I think you need a change of scenery."

"Alright, brother," said Kaoru.

He got up and cast a last look at Okamura, who sat as wilted as ever. The wind rattled in the lock that held the two windowpanes together, and fell silent.

"You and I should talk more. I think we can be of use to each other. Find me sometime." Kaoru turned around and headed for the door, his brother's hand resting over his upper back as if to steer him. The younger twin seemed to accept it, and looked at the other in what seemed like wordless thanks.

"But wh-" Okamura found his voice a second too late, when Kaoru and Hikaru were nearly out the door. Kaoru turned around.

"Which one am I?" he said with a smile that was almost a grin. "That's easy. I'm the one who doesn't hate you."

Okamura looked at the two identical receding backs and caught glimpses of the smiling faces as the twins turned to speak to each other now and again. He felt something like a cool gust of air, as if a door had been opened. He could step to the other side, and learn more about what sorts of people these bizarre twins really were, but he had the distinct feeling that if he did, life as he knew it would be over.

He conjured up the younger Hitachiin's soft, pale-gold eyes, rimmed in the shadow of sleepless nights devoted to a mysterious cause. And his long limbs, and the slightly stiff way he held his shoulders as he listened like the page of a diary might, without a hint of judgment… And the way he had said, "it won't hurt anymore," as if he knew that emptiness could hurt too. Perhaps, Okamura realized, he had never liked life as he knew it to begin with. And maybe there was a reason Kaoru's name had found its way into the top Five - just as Kaoru had, without even trying, found his way into his heart, and tarried, and stayed.


	3. Christmas

AGE: 16, Winter of 2nd year in Highschool

Part 3: On Christmas You Tell the Truth

Okamura got up from his seat, walked past the rows of desks, pushed open the door, and made his way down the hall to the bathroom.

He heard noises before he even crossed the threshold, coming from the stall farthest away from the entry. He followed them and pushed open the door. It opened freely.

The twins were having sex. Both had taken off their blazers for easier maneuvering, and the pitcher had his back against the stall divider, the catcher twisting his torso to look back at him. The two were kissing - clumsily. The one behind, it seemed, had not done much more than unzip his fly - his belt was still in place. The one in front had lowered his pants slightly, and his shirt was tucked out, obscuring much of what went on below the waist.

After a few seconds, the twins had sensed Okamura's presence and the catcher broke the kiss to smile at him. He stretched out his hands, as if inviting Okamura to join them.

Okamura woke up in a cold sweat. The alarm had not gone off yet, and the radio clock read 5:24. He shifted to turn over, and found that his boxers were moist.

He stayed away from the Hitachiins for a long time after that.

…

In Japan, New Year's was for family and Christmas was for lovers. To that end, the twins had decided to have a night in, and were sprawled in bed watching "Love, Actually" as they slowly consumed a strawberry sponge cake. Hikaru had hidden a gift for Kaoru that he was hoped would help him get lucky without making his brother blush too much, and there was a large stack of Christmas mail between them.

In addition to the perfunctory season's greetings and the gag gifts from school friends, of particular interest was a stack of thick letters from across the Pacific. It seemed hard to believe, but six months had passed since Kaoru had been sent to Hazeltown, an eating disorder clinic on the island of Oahu, and Hikaru had followed him, faking a body dysmorphic disorder and an addiction to exercise. There, the friendships they forged had been far more helpful in sorting through things than any service the clinic offered - and emails and envelopes still flew like fat, gossipy birds across the ocean with some regularity. On Christmas, it was the custom among Americans to write Christmas letters, which they printed on nice stationery and mailed to all their friends. And when it came to close friends, many people sent handwritten letters, of which there was a fair number in the stack.

Of course, it still felt strange to see their Hazeltown friends' full names and addresses on the envelopes, since at the institution last names had been off-limits out of respect for patients from high-profile families. And yet, there they all were, landed safe and sound at their destination on the twins' bed in Shirokanedai, Minato Ward, Tokyo. As surreal a place as the clinic had been, certain things about it translated to real life far better than expected - even if the twins still found it hard to believe just how much their closest Hazeltown friends, whether by dint of wishful thinking or serendipity, resembled the various members of the Host Club.

Manchester Lesar - "Manny," and the exuberant Tamaki of the group when it came to everything but her brunette mane - was back at Duke after a year's leave, and had a new, fabulous life. Her letter was filled with curses aimed at organic chemistry (she, too, was aiming to be a doctor), as well as colorful descriptions of the silver lining. Apparently, she had it all, and being a serious student did not prevent her from e-dating a guy at UCLA whilst making the rounds of frat parties, dropping acid, and playing Pooh-sticks on a pedestrian bridge at five o'clock in the morning.

Kimberly de Bontin - or Kim, the tall, dark, quiet analog of Mori - had overcome her fear of Laduree Macarons enough to move back to Paris, where she did marketing for Dior, and was plenty happy in her cool, nonchalant way. She rounded out every letter with "Gratefully Yours," and addressed Kaoru as "Doctor," having never forgotten that he single-handedly talked her through a panic attack.

Samantha Sutton - or Sammie - a former beauty queen and the resident lolita - was back in Oregon doing good deeds and using her name to promote various charities.

Griffin Burkholder - or Gif, one of two girls who had been known as twins despite one being Asian and the other white - was still a patient at Hazeltown, but had been allowed to return to St. Paul, Minnesota for a Scandinavian Christmas. She sent a picture of herself in a white gown and Santa Lucia candles on her head, but her letter to the twins was about a third as thick as the one received by her other half, Shar - the "twin" who came to Japan to work for Yuzuha and was living with the Hitachiins.

Gabriella Lo Riccio - Gabs, and similar to Kyouya in her propensity for playing devil's advocate - had recently returned to New York City, was being home schooled, and saw woefully few people every day besides Kyouya on Skype. She insisted that it suited her just fine, however, and peppered her letters with attempts at sentences in kanji. If not for her insistent solicitations for feedback and corrections, Hikaru might have died laughing as he read them.

"Friendship, the gift that just keeps on giving, eh?" said Hikaru as he folded up Gaby's letter, put it back in the evelope, and tossed it into the "archive" pile.

"Hikaru, with all due respect," Kaoru chuckled, "Pathos is not your strong suit."

"Mmm - maybe you're right." Hikaru cut off a piece of sponge cake, straight off the platter, and put it halfway in his mouth, motioning Kaoru to take a bite off the other end. The younger Hitachiin gladly complied, and his brother pulled him into a long, slow kiss.

"But seriously," said Hikaru as they broke apart. "It's a bit of reality check, how easily life can separate people. At least the two of us are both here, instead of half a world apart. I mean - take Kyouya for instance. He's probably spending Christmas smooching a computer screen."

Kaoru tossed a caressing look in his brother's direction and lowered his eyes.

"And merry Christmas to you too, darling" - he laughed softly as he nestled into the crook of his brother's shoulder. The truth was, he suspected there would come a day when the two of them, too, would be spending even more time apart for the sake of their respective careers. But just once he decided to elbow the thought out of his mind. Besides, they'd always have the holidays - and not over Skype (™), with any luck.

The younger twin's eyes fell upon a last, unopened envelope. Unlike the ones they had gone through, this one was domestic post, and he did not think much of the return address at first. It was the name of a classmate of theirs - with whom he and Hikaru had an unpleasant run-in a few weeks ago. But there was no first name, and at the end of the day, Tokyo was probably home to hundreds of Okamuras.

Kaoru tore open the envelope and flipped open the card - a picture of a coach-and-four on its front. His eyes ran over the words.

And then his eyebrows shot up in horror, and he all but threw Hikaru off him as he leaped off the bed.

"Whoa - Kaoru, what's going on?!"

But the younger twin was staring, stricken, at the card in his hands and gave no answer for a good minute.

Hikaru got out of bed and came to his brother's side, but the younger twin shut the card before he could see it. Hikaru put a hand on his shoulder, but the latter continued staring at the coach and showed no sign he even felt the touch.

"It's Okamura," Kaoru finally said.

"Okamura?" Hikaru blinked. "You mean, Kenji Okamura, in our class? What about him?"

"It's… A suicide note."

"A… what?"

"A suicide note."

"A suicide note?! But - why?"

"He spells it out right here" - the younger twin flipped open the card again. "Kaoru," he read, "By the time you read this, I will be gone. But before I take my life I feel I should explain my reasons."

Hikaru's eyes widened, and he craned his neck over his brother's shoulder as Kaoru fell silent and they both read the lines that followed.

"You have a purpose in life" - the letter read - "I never did. For a while I thought it was either you or me, that the world had no room for the both of us. I hated you - not the least for having seen right through me. But they say that the opposite of hate is not love; it is indifference. In time I realized that there were only two ways to resolve things: either an illicit union between the sheets, or the death of one of us. But an affair like that is not something I can allow myself, and I am sure you would be disgusted by it as well. I also do not want your murder on my conscience, so I am going. - Kenji Okamura."

"Well, HE's nuts," Hikaru affirmed, squeezing Kaoru's arm as he finished reading.

"Very astute, Hikaru." Kaoru spun around, placed the card on the bedside table, crossed the room, and was rifling through the drawers of his desk before Hikaru had time to blink.

"Wait - what are you doing?"

Kaoru seemed to have extracted the book he was looking for - the Ouran student directory - and was leafing feverishly through it.

"Calling his house. And if no one answers, we're going over there. There might still be time -"

"Wait… What?" This WAS the same Okamura - Hikaru thought - who tried to destroy Kaoru's notes and had just written that his other option besides suicide was murder? And yet, assuming it was not a bluff, he could not help but feel his respect for Kaoru jump at least a dozen notches.

Kaoru had found the number and was already on the phone, on speaker.

"Okamura residence," said a calm woman's voice at the other end of the line.

"Yes, may I speak to Kenji Okamura?" said Kaoru, his voice borderline hysterical despite his best efforts.

The calm woman was silent for a few seconds. "Who is calling, please?"

"My name is Kaoru Hitachiin. One of his friends at Ouran."

There was another pause.

"Mr. Hitachiin, I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but Mr. Okamura passed away yesterday."

"He… What?!" - Kaoru's mouth dropped open and he sank to the chair in front of his desk. Hikaru rushed over to his side to hug him around the shoulders, but once again Kaoru seemed to barely register his presence. "How did he…" Kaoru stammered. "How did he... How did it happen?"

"I am not at liberty to say, sir."

"May I -" Kaoru gasped for breath - "May I talk to his parents?"

"I can find out if they're available, sir."

The line went busy and an airy elevator melody came on. Hikaru knelt down in front of Kaoru and kissed him on the cheek. Kaoru leaned into the kiss slightly, but made no move to return it, and Hikaru noticed that "Love, Actually" was still playing in the background. He got up to turn it off, but not before giving Kaoru's hand a squeeze.

"Hello?" said a man's voice. Kaoru straightened up just as Hikaru returned to his side and knelt back down, cupping his brother's free hand in both of his.

"Yes. Hello. Is this Mr. Okamura?"

"Yes."

"My name is Kaoru Hitachiin, a friend of your son's from school. I just heard about your loss. I am very, very sorry." The man on the other end was silent - discouragingly so - and Kaoru swallowed and continued, the muscles of his throat working triple-time to keep his voice from quivering. "I was wondering, Mr. Okamura, could you tell me how it happened?"

"Kaoru," the man said, after a pause just like the woman and his voice just as sterile. "I appreciate your calling to express your condolences, but at this point we do not know for sure. We have a suspicion, but we've decided it would be best not to disclose that information just yet."

The man's voice certainly gave off the impression that he was not someone to be argued with. Kaoru paused to gather himself.

"Mr. Okamura," he said, lowering his voice. "I just received a note from your son where he says he was planning to commit suicide."

The twins almost heard the man's jaw drop across the wires.

"I'd really like to speak to you about it, Mr. Okamura," Kaoru said. "In person, if possible."

"Well, I expect the next few days will be busy with arrangements," said Okamura senior, "But I have a little time now. Would you be willing to come over within the hour?"

…

Before the hour was up, a car had carried Hikaru and Kaoru across town to the Okamura residence. It turned out that their deceased classmate lived in the the embassy district of Minami Azabu, in a large high-rise condo done up in Japanese style.

Mr. Okamura senior turned out to be a man of some presence. Though far from overweight, he appeared to take up a great deal of space, and wore a grave expression that seemed to have been etched into his features over the course of many years. It crossed Kaoru's mind that in another life he might have made a good shogun.

They shook hands and exchanged introductions as a maid took their coats and issued slippers to change into.

"And this is my older brother, Hikaru," said Kaoru, as the former nodded solemnly. "He's here for moral support."

"You two are Yuzuha Hitachiin's sons, is that right?" said Okamura senior in the same sterile voice he had on the phone, showing them into a sitting room where tea was arranged on a low table. "How is she?"

"Very well, thank you," said Hikaru - taking the initiative, as the first son, to speak first where family matters were concerned. "She's in Milan on business at the moment, but she should be back by New Year's." He wanted to mention that their mother was likely going to present them with a new sibling come spring, but bit his tongue just in time.

"Send her my wishes," said Okamura senior. "My wife is a fan - though I'm sorry to say she did not feel up to joining us."

The maid appeared once again, having glided in without a sound, and began to pour tea as the three of them sat down at the table.

"So," said Mr. Okamura, once the maid bowed her way out. "Were you two close with…"

The man paused, and while his face showed no change of expression, his eyes - two obsidian circles - had grown heavy and dull, as if a spark that had reflected in them had been snuffed out. The muscles of his throat struggled painfully with the syllables of his son's name.

Kaoru immediately felt lightyears more guilty.

"No, I wouldn't say so," he said, taking hold of his cup more to steady himself than anything else. "I can't say I knew him well, even though we've been in class together for a long time." He paused, staring at the steam. "But I would still like to… apologize for not having done more to prevent what happened."

Okamura senior appeared a trifle surprised - or as surprised as a shogun would have allowed himself to look. He turned his teacup several degrees back and forth, his eyes fixed at a point in space between them as if he were trying to X-ray Kaoru's words for hidden meaning.

"Well, I appreciate the sentiment," he said finally. "But I'm afraid I don't understand. If the two of you weren't close, why do you think you could have done something to prevent it?"

"Well," Kaoru replied, "It all began a couple months ago. "When Kenji was suspended for a week for trying to destroy another student's notes."

"Yes, I remember." Okamura senior's voice grew a degree cooler.

"I was that student." Kaoru paused - scanning Mr. Okamura's face for a change in expression. But there was none. The man sat as silent as a promontory overlooking the ocean.

"The class rankings had come out," Kaoru continued, "And I had risen to the top of the class very quickly. I had just started taking school seriously after the summer, and no one was expecting it. It seemed to have really upset Kenji, which might have been why he did what he did. In the end, he got caught, and his punishment was to fix my notes - which he did, so all's well that ends well. But I still think that incident was the beginning of the end."

He paused again, and took a swallow of tea. His heart rate had begun to gallop, and the words had been tumbling from his mouth faster than he could form them. He gripped his teacup and took a few deep breaths to steady himself. He felt Hikaru's eyes on him from somewhere off to the side, and had half a mind to glance back for reassurance, but decided he did not want to get distracted.

"These things happen," Mr. Okamura interrupted his thoughts, his voice less like a wall of rock than his aspect a few moments ago. "We cannot always foresee the actions of others."

Kaoru looked at the tablecloth in front of him. It was a diplomatic way of putting things, to be sure. But it did not make him feel any better.

"I know," Kaoru said, taking a deep a breath. "But the thing is - when all was said and done, I went and talked to Kenji. I told him that it was never my intention for us to be enemies. I tried to figure out what his goal was in life, and told him we might be of use to each other. But I must have said something wrong, because he only became more standoffish after that. And I… I never really tried again. I always told myself I would, but things kept getting in the way. I was either too busy with school, or with my new friends, or with this or that. I didn't even realize that I basically replaced Kenji in his friend group until it was too late. The top students in the class - they're all friends with each other. When you move up in the ranks, you get new friends - it's one of the perks of the job, I guess. Like a uniform or something..."

Kaoru had begun choking up, but did not register it until the tears had formed a physical obstruction to his words. He still could not bear to raise his eyes at Mr. Okamura, but suddenly found himself feeling a lot better. Like a murderer might have done after confessing - he realized - even if it earned him life without parole.

"But it seems no one else did anything either," said Mr. Okamura. "You can't have been alone in noticing that Kenji had grown standoffish. Did anyone else say anything about it?"

Kaoru chewed on his lips. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hikaru's hand inching into his space on the table.

Mr. Okamura was right. If anyone else noticed that Kenji had grown withdrawn in the past month, they had certainly given no sign. And while Kaoru was loth to tell the father this, it had turned out that the other honor students had never liked Kenji in the first place, and were only too happy to replace him with the two-for-one deal that was the Hitachiin brothers. In fact, Hikaru had become an honorary Big Fiver quite painlessly, as his role in the paper shredder incident made all the difference between the notes being salvageable and not, and the honor students appointed him their Secretary of Academic Sabotage Prevention.

And yet…

"It's true," Kaoru said. "The others mentioned it once or twice, but nobody did anything. Except I don't think that's any excuse. I still think if I had paid more attention, I might have seen the warning signs."

Because that was the trouble, really. Everyone, everywhere, was so wrapped up in chasing their own desires, hopes, and dreams that they managed to live inches away from other people's pain and remain completely oblivious. It took somebody dropping dead for anyone to take any notice.

"Here's the note," said Kaoru, pulling out a large manila envelope that contained the card from Kenji Okamura. "If you want to keep it, or read it. It has some… disturbing things in it I didn't mention. But just in case it's helpful in the investigation." He slid the envelope across the table, and made a move to get up. "Excuse me."

He suddenly felt sick to his stomach.

"Kaoru, wait," said Mr. Okamura in a low voice. Kaoru paused halfway to the door.

"I think I know what you want me to say," said Okamura's father. "And let me tell you - I know where you are coming from. I lost a brother-in-law to suicide myself. Some people consider suicide an honorable thing, but that doesn't make it any easier for those left behind. The fact is, you always wish you could have done more, and you always feel tempted to blame yourself. But some people… hold their cards close to their vests, so to speak. Not everyone can be helped, and not everybody wants help."

Mr. Okamura finished speaking and reached over to refill the twins' cups with practiced movements. He no longer looked quite so imposing from where Kaoru stood, but rather hunched and sad - like an old mountain, its crags and peaks smoothed over by time. A moment ago, Kaoru might have been frustrated, but found himself unable to remain so. After all, it was anyone's guess what other tempests had battered this man over the course of his lifetime. And yet he had survived - survived HIS SON, among other things - and was still here, pouring tea and making conversation with people he barely knew. It was nothing short of mind-boggling. And while Kaoru could not be sure if he agreed with the sentiment that you couldn't get through to everyone, he still found himself thinking that if he was setting himself up for a lifetime of work with tragedy, Mr. Okamura's example might have a thing or two to teach him when the time came.

…

The twins had said goodnight to Mr. Okamura, and Kaoru dismissed the car on account of needing a walk to clear his head. It was nearly nine p.m., and the younger twin was walking quickly down the street - past shops, trees, and lightposts decked out in Christmas lights - as if he had somewhere to be. Hikaru followed a step or two behind, and a good fifteen minutes passed in silence.

Kaoru hadn't been sure what he had wanted to get out of the talk with Okamura senior. Had he wanted to get blamed - to feel more justified in the blame he had heaped upon himself? Did he want absolution? He wasn't sure, and the visit had not left him with many answers. And yet he could not shake the feeling that if it wasn't for his desire to save someone in the future, there might be one more person alive in the here and now.

"You didn't have to do that, you know," he heard Hikaru's voice behind him.

His brother's words caught him by surprise, and he spun around. For the first time in his life, he had been so lost in thought he forgot he had been born with a flesh-and-blood shadow.

"Huh?"

Hikaru had stopped too, and had put his hands in his pockets. His scarf was wrapped comically around his neck in too many loops, and the tops of his ears were pink from the cold.

"You didn't have to rush over there and apologize. It's all very sad, and it was a nice thing to do, but you didn't HAVE to. You're not a doctor yet, and Okamura isn't some patient you couldn't save. He's just a - " Guy in our class, Hikaru wanted to say, but the gravity of Kaoru's expression made him stop just in time. "I mean… I don't want to complain or anything - you know I'm happy to support you and do whatever it takes, but… It's Christmas."

Kaoru stared at his brother, who had buried his hands deeper in his pockets and his face deeper into his scarf with a sheepish yet emphatic look in his eyes. He'd said nothing more, and seemed to have suddenly grown smaller, but as far as Kaoru was concerned he may as well have unleashed every guilt-trip mechanism known to man.

Because it was. It WAS Christmas. For the past couple of weeks, everything had screamed it, from the LED lights tracing every branch of every tree lining the streets, to the fiberglass snow in the store windows, to the eddies of shoppers and happy couples strolling the streets. And what's more, it wasn't just any Christmas. It was their first Christmas. As a couple. And after months of making his brother wait in the sidelines, making tea and caring for his exhausted corpse every night, he hadn't managed to take even one, measly day off to spend a bit more time with him.

"Hikaru, I…"

It was official. He was scum. The absolute, most despicable scum of the earth.

And he was going to put a stop to it. If what happened to Okamura had made him wonder, this just about sealed the deal.

"Hikaru, I'm sorry."

He took a step toward him, and before Hikaru could react, he had taken his brother's face firmly in his hands and kissed him, right in the middle of the bustling boulevard.

Hikaru was so surprised that when Kaoru pulled away, he remained frozen with his mouth half-open, his arms stiff at his sides. He had always wondered what it would take for Kaoru to be a little more forward. He'd even fantasized about it on occasion. But he'd never dreamed it would take the form of the PDA equivalent of streaking across a baseball stadium during playoffs. He glanced wildly around and noticed - with some relief - that the streams of passers-by continued to flow around them just as before, and surprisingly few people had stopped to look. He found himself thanking the Lord, for the first time in his life, that the twins' unusual look often got them pegged as foreigners. In Japan, there was a tacit rule that foreigners could break almost any taboo with impunity - from eating on the go to, apparently, kissing another man who looked just like you in the middle of the street.

"Kaoru, what's gotten into you?" he whispered.

Kaoru had released his face and taken him by the wrists. His eyes looked guilty.

"Hikaru, I don't want to do this anymore."

"Do… what?" Hikaru felt his blood run cold.

No. He couldn't possibly -

"This whole med school thing. It's not worth it. Because of my ambition, our classmate's dead, and you're feeling neglected…"

"Kaoru, no…"

"And this is only the beginning. I mean, who's to say what's next? What fresh shit tomorrow's going to bring?"

Kaoru had begun to blink - too quickly - and Hikaru saw his eyes reflect the bluish lights a little brighter. The younger twin let go and brought his sleeve to his face, covering his mouth. Hikaru felt a painful tug under his ribs and wanted to hug his brother right then and there, public decency taboos be damned.

"Kaoru… Please don't…" - he floundered - "I'm sorry… I shouldn't have said that. I was being selfish. I'm not feeling neglected at all, I'm fine - really…"

"No, Hikaru… No," Kaoru shook his head. "I'm the one who's been selfish. I felt bad, so I ran off to apologize and satisfy my own guilt, when this was the one night I should've spent with you."

Kaoru turned away again, and Hikaru thought he heard him begin to wheeze, barely inaudibly. The older twin felt like he was sinking.

"Look…" - he did his best to rally his forces - "Okay, maybe you're right. I'm not going to lie, I would've much rather spent the last hour in bed with you. But it's not just my opinion that you've got a gift. All those letters, at home? They're proof - you've made a difference for those people. And you don't even have any formal training yet."

"You're exaggerating," Kaoru replied dully. The tears were gone from his voice, and he sank onto the ledge of an empty concrete flowerbed. "Supporting your friends - anyone can do that."

Hikaru came over and took his hands in his. Kaoru accepted the gesture, but his arms hung limply.

"Okay, well, there's also today," the older twin said, "As soon as you got the news, you had a knee-jerk reaction to run and save Okamura. Even though - well, you know how it is - you're not supposed to say anything bad about dead people, so I'm not going to. And when you learned it was too late, you still wanted to play a part in helping the family get closure. You couldn't think of anything else."

"Yeah, some closure." Kaoru chuckled with disdain, looking past his hands at Hikaru's feet. "They met the guy who might've killed their son."

"Don't SAY that." Hikaru squeezed Kaoru's hands and gave them a shake for good measure. "Look. I think you've got an impulse to care about others that can not be denied. So I don't think you should quit what you're doing. In fact, I'm pretty sure you'll never be happy if you do. I just think you should take a little more time for yourself. Because I'm worried about you, honestly."

Kaoru looked up at his brother, holding his hands and swinging them gently back and forth as if they were both still five, his eyes soft and indulgent. He wondered if what Hikaru had said didn't make for a better description of what he saw before him as if in a mirror.

"Hikaru, I'm sorry." Kaoru rose to his feet. "I… got so carried away with everything I forgot how wonderful you were."

Hikaru gave a cheeky grin. "Nah, I'm not wonderful. I'm just head-over-heels in love with you, you silly bugger." He reached out and pinched a frost-kissed cheek. "Now let's go home. We've still got a good three hours, and we can do whatever you want. We can hold a candlelight vigil for Okamura, or I can pretend to be Santa, and you can sit on my lap and tell me what you want for Christmas."

Kaoru had been in no mood for jokes, but he still felt the corners of his mouth curving skyward.

"You… NASTY pervert," he chuckled, clapping a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"That's right," Hikaru smiled back. He wrapped his arm around his brother's waist, and began to steer him toward an intersection where they had a better chance of catching a cab. "And your answer BETTER be 'you' - or there WILL be spankings."


	4. The Pumpkin Carriage

AGE 18, First Year of University

Part 1: The Pumpkin Carriage

Through high school, everyone had been required to wear uniforms, but university students could wear whatever they wanted. To that end, Kaoru had decided to wear a T-shirt and his favorite sport coat. Yuzuha berated him for looking like a bum on his first day of his "new career" and more than encouraged him to wear a smart button-up ("Best foot forward," she had said, pretending to wipe away the requisite tear at her sons going off to college). But in the end she abated, as Kaoru - unlike Hikaru - had a practiced manner of being quiet with her until he got his way.

The truth was that the soft, broken-in T-shirt comforted him, and today he would need all the comfort he could get. After all, his first day of university would also be his first day of school without his brother. Hikaru would be doing business at Ouran University along with half their high school graduating class, and he, Kaoru, would be starting medical school at Tokyo University, better known as Todai.

And they had planned it that way, so he'd had plenty of time to prepare himself. For one thing, Todai had the (slightly) better medical faculty - Ouran's was small, given that medicine was a less popular choice among children of moneyed elite. In addition, university would be a good time to start building his new identity as not his brother's brother, but Kaoru Hitachi, poor cousin. Things always changed a great deal at university, and before long he would make new friendships and new connections, and would enter a new world just as his brother did the same. At the same time, old ties would wither away until only the important ones were left. And then, quietly, Hikaru Hitachiin would marry Kaoru Hitachi. With Yuzuha's help, they'd already fudged personal records to create the identity of Kaoru Hitachi, female. That was the name under which the younger Hitachiin would be attending Todai, and he would pass himself off as a transsexual if anyone went out of their way to check things. It was a radical solution, but Hikaru had confessed his love to him, and then came up a way to have their cake and eat it too despite the older son's obligation to keep up the appearance of a family man. After that, Kaoru hadn't thought twice about it. After all, it worked out: he WANTED out of the world of Japan-Inc, and he WANTED to be a doctor who helped real people. The eating disorder and the summer at the clinic in the States had merely given him a push in the right direction. And a part of him - as he had confessed once to Haruhi - had always wanted a legacy of his own, even if being by his brother's side had always made him feel safe.

Consistent with his new persona, by the first day of school Kaoru had dyed his hair brown, grown it into a short bob, procured brown contacts, and got some minor facial work done - most notably a nose-job. ("More Japanese," he'd said, and the doctor nearly dropped his pen in surprise. Everyone else who came to him wanted Western noses, and would have killed to be born with Kaoru's).

And there it was, the moment of truth. It was 8:45, with fifteen minutes till class time, and he stood across the quad from the First Medical Building, the timid rays of the April* sun warming his hands and face. The cherry trees were in bloom, but they did not put Kaoru in the mood for new beginnings in the slightest. He had been excited until recently. But at that moment all he could think was how much he wanted Hikaru at his side. Hikaru would have given him a cheeky grin and told him to show those Todai sissies who was boss.

(*the Japanese schoolyear begins in April)

But that was it, really - Todai and Ouran had always been rivals, and there was little cross-pollination between the two schools. There didn't need to be; both were part of the so-called elevator system. Students entered university prep schools as early as kindergarten, and usually stayed till the end. Kaoru had jumped ship deliberately, and as a consequence knew nobody - almost without exaggeration. In theory, he probably wasn't alone in being new. Todai was bigger and - unlike Ouran - attracted people from all over the country and from all walks of life. But it still felt like everybody in the crowd of chattering, milling students had already become fast friends with each other.

Ok, buck up, seriously - he told himself. Hikaru wouldn't want you to cry.

He WANTED to come up to people and say hello; he knew it wouldn't do to simply come to class and go home every day. He'd have to make friends, if for no other reason than the fact that he'd need trusted colleagues to rely on as he moved forward in his profession. And Hikaru would probably be having the time of his life in business school: almost all the students who weren't future doctors or lawyers spent their college years party-hopping. He wouldn't want Hikaru to feel guilty for being his brother's only social outlet. And wasn't this what this was all about? Each building up his own life to preserve what they had together?

And yet, he could not help thinking that it might have been easier to follow the same path, and work just under Hikaru at Hitachiin-group. They'd politely sidestep the marriage question whenever anyone asked, and they'd continue to spend every waking moment together. He could give up the game right then. Just turn around and go home, and it wouldn't hurt anymore. Perhaps transfer back to Ouran. They'd take him for sure - he'd finished third in his year after all, after Haruhi and Class Representative. And then this feeling would be gone - this feeling he had every time he turned to the side and found nobody there. Who knew, he might still be happy in the life he'd given up. Did he really NEED to to start Japan's first eating disorder clinic?

No. He felt guilty for even asking himself that. And he'd never be happy sitting behind a desk trying to figure out what women wanted to wear. Not that fashion was ever about what women wanted in the first place, not with all the pain and self-hatred it seemed to sow. In some small way, he thought, if he became a doctor and specialized in eating disorders, he might undo some of the damage for which his family's company was responsible.

Except, in that moment, even the prospect of picking a seat in the auditorium made him want to disappear. With Hikaru as his wingman, he had never felt awkward around strangers. If they didn't want to speak to anyone, they'd speak to each other. If they wanted to strike up a conversation with someone new, doing it together took no effort at all. But most importantly - and he himself struggled to believe it - Hikaru really was the one who almost always spoke first. Without his brother nearby, Kaoru felt like his voice had been stolen.

It's okay. Just breathe - he told himself.

You don't HAVE to talk. You can try talking tomorrow.

Just go in - that's it - and find a seat. He willed one foot in front of the other until the large lecture hall - bathed in sterile fluorescent light - opened up in front of him.

Yes, the front row will do just fine. No, maybe the second row. That way you won't be tempted to play with your phone, but won't look like a total gunner**. It'll all be over in three hours, then you'll have an hour for lunch, then one more of class. Then you can go to the library, find a secluded spot, and cry or study - or do both - to your heart's content. Or maybe it would be better to just go home after lecture is over. Home, where Hikaru might be as well, or at any rate where all his things were. The twins had elected to keep living with their parents until they - or rather Kaoru - got used to the new workload. Maybe he could even play with little Ageha before launching into the day's reading. Playing with his little sister always made him feel better.

(**medical student speak for someone who makes a show of trying really hard in school)

The lecture began, and Kaoru did his best to pay attention. With something else to occupy his mind besides Hikaru, the time passed at slightly faster than a crawl. The lecturer fleshed out the expectations of the course and launched straight into the material - a mere five minutes into the first period of the schoolyear. By the time a half an hour had passed, Kaoru was feeling almost happy. Surreal, even, that he was actually at Asia's premier medical school - something that he, a latecomer to the serious student party, had never completely believed would happen. And now he was hearing with his own ears what one of the world's best doctors had to say - things he might one day USE. His pen could barely keep up with his thoughts as he distilled the words into columns of shorthand.

But then the clock struck noon, and class was over. A general shuffling of feet and the clamor of conversation filled the air, and Kaoru felt sick to his stomach. It had been a while, but from time to time he still got bulimic urges when he was anxious, and this time there was no Hikaru to hold his hand. He's quite forgotten - from noon to one was lunchtime. Everyone would probably trickle away to fill the cafeteria and probably every cafe in a half-mile radius, and he would follow, at which point he'd have to subject himself to the humiliation of finding a seat in a sea of tables occupied by those who already knew each other.

He caught himself thinking that he would much rather eat his lunch in the bathroom - or rather, UN-eat it.

He reached for his phone and looked at the screen. No new messages. The last one was still from that morning, in the car: "I love you, go get 'em." He had half a mind to text his brother, but realized that if he did, the most coherent thing his fingers would muster would be the the word "Help." And he so wanted to be brave for Hikaru.

He got up with a sigh, and followed the crowd into the hallway, but the world began to blur and he had to lean back against the wall and close his eyes. A hot tear slid down his temple, and he felt it disappear into his hair.

He waited, but the feeling would not let go. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. All he wanted was for Hikaru to come back and hold him by the chin and tell him everything would be alright.

"Hey… Are you okay?"

Kaoru opened his eyes and saw a girl - on the short side and pretty in a childish way, with round cheeks deliberately done up with too much blush. She was wearing a long floral dress and woven rope-sandals that were almost too summery for the season. Her hair hung loose in wavy tresses that emerged from under a bucket hat, and she carried a messenger bag, also made out of some woven sort of material.

"Uh-" He brought his hand to his face, embarrassed.

"Why are you crying?"

"I- I… I miss..." He paused. The girl looked at him with her doe-eyes and smiled. "I miss home," he blurted out.

"You're homesick? So you're not from around here?"

"No, I'm not," Kaoru said quickly, happy that he'd blurted "home" instead of "my brother." In a twisted way he hadn't even lied - Hikaru's presence made him feel at home no matter where he was.

"Where are you from?"

"Hokkaido." It was true - if he was going with the fiction of Kaoru Hitachi, second cousin to Hikaru and a commoner. The fictitious girl-cum-boy, who still remained a girl on paper, was the child of a deceased childless couple from Hokkaido distantly related to the Hitachiins.

"Oh, Hokkaido! Cool! I thought you looked a little Ainu - are you Ainu?"

(*indigenous ethnic group of Japan, found predominantly in Hokkaido, look somewhat Caucasian.)

Kaoru blinked at her. Ordinarily, the question might have sounded rude, but he could hardly construe it that way, coming as it did from such a frank, open-hearted-seeming girl. And he was feeling far too broken up to stand on ceremony.

"Uh, yeah, part."

That much was true - Yuzuha was an Ainu extract, and the fact had somehow surfaced in her looks with a vengeance: she had hazel eyes, auburn hair, and features atypical for a Japanese. The twins' father, to compound things, was an unknown westerner.

"Well, you shouldn't cry, I'm sure you'll feel at home here soon enough. And I'm new too."

"Oh. Where are you from?" Kaoru straightened up and rolled his shoulders to give himself an air of nonchalance.

"I'm from Shiga prefecture. Small town. My parents nearly DIED when I got into Todai for medicine. And after a year of being a ronin, too." She giggled, her face an expression of unadulterated pride, and now that she mentioned where she was from, Kaoru noticed she spoke with a slight Kansai accent. "I'm glad I met you - we can be new together! What's your name, Mr. Ainu stranger?"

"Uh, Hitachi."

"Do you have a first name, Hitachi-san from Hokkaido?"

"Kaoru. But I don't really have anything in Hokkaido anymore - my parents are dead, and the house's been sold to pay debts. I live with… uh… extended family in Tokyo now." He no longer felt tears behind his eyes now that talking to this ridiculous bubbly creature - and the lies came easily. In fact, he was surprised how little they felt like lies, because until a minute ago he really had felt every bit the orphan from a faraway land. It didn't matter that that "faraway land" was Ouran, which was on the other side of town.

"Oh, you poor thing!" the girl exclaimed, "Are they nice to you at least?"

"Yes, they are," Kaoru replied. "Especially my… uh, cousin. But doesn't go here. And I don't know anybody."

"Oh, well." The girl beamed. "You know me! Let's go have lunch!"

Kaoru felt nauseous again at the thought of setting foot into a forbidding ocean of cold stares and allegedly taken seats.

"You… want to go have lunch?"

"Of course! Let's go to Mos Burger across the street! I love Mos Burger! You can't learn if you don't feed your brain properly - that's what my mom always says. And we've got biochem after break, yuck." She grabbed Kaoru's hand and all but unceremoniously started tugging him toward the exit.

"Uh, but I don't even know your name," he sputtered. And Mos burger? Dear God, he'd never been. What if he made a fool of himself? He realized it might have behooved him to do more research for his role as a commoner.

"I'm Tamiko! Tamiko Inoue."

Kaoru's phone beeped and he used his spare hand to extract it from his pocket. He had three new messages.

"Miss you, dahling. How's my favorite budding doctor?" said Hikaru's.

"Eyes on the prize, Kaoru! I'm sure you'll do amazing," read Haruhi's.

"I hope you're having a great day. Do Ouran proud," wrote Class Representative.

Kaoru and Tamiko emerged into the sunlight, and the twin smiled. Ouran no longer felt quite so far away - at least not as far as Hokkaido.

…

"How was your day?"

Kaoru looked up from his reading and tipped his chair on its back legs, hanging his head over the back to glance at his twin. He had not been expecting him so soon - it was only three-thirty. Indeed, he'd expected Hikaru to spend the rest of the day "celebrating," and making the rounds of club initiation meetings. After all, university really was a social club for the vast majority of students, and there wasn't anything wrong with that.

"Predictably bad at first," Kaoru replied, "But it got better."

Hikaru took hold of the chair and bent down to kiss his brother's upside down lips.

"Well, good."

"And yours?"

"I spent most of the day fielding questions about where you were."

"Aw - "

"It's okay, I did my best" - Hikaru beamed a peppy grin - "I opted to go with the tragic lover role, and complained all day about how you abandoned me and ran off across town." He plopped down on the bed and patted his knees with a beckoning smile. " Honestly, though… We didn't have to do this. This little secret we've got - it's a secret everyone knows anyway."

Kaoru got up, returning a slightly more demure version of his brother's expression, and came over to his side.

"Hikaru, we're talked about this -"

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Hikaru glanced up at Kaoru and pressed his lips into his forearm, toying with his hand. "You want a ring on your finger - and trust me, I want to give it to you just as much. It's just that sometimes it feels like the people we were surrounded by in high school are the people we'll be surrounded by forever. So even if we hadn't decided to play it safe with your secret identity and whatnot, we would've still been able to live the life we wanted. They would've understood, and respected it."

"You know it's not just that, Hikaru."

"Well, what else is there?" The older twin looked up wistfully at his brother. "The pumpkin carriage?"

Kaoru sat down by his side and accepted an arm around him.

"Yeah, the pumpkin carriage. The only reason you feel like highschool never ends is because it's only just ended." Kaoru pressed his torso against Hikaru's and draped just his legs over his brother's. Sitting on his lap, which Hikaru seemed to want - did not feel proper given the nature of the conversation. "It doesn't seem like things will change, but they will. And the scary part is, there's no stroke of midnight to tell you when it'll happen. It might not even happen all at once. So the only way to win is to beat time at its own game, and change first. There's a time and a place for two incestuous twins to be the hot couple among their friends, and that time and place sure isn't when they're 30."

"Hah, when did you become so eloquent, brother?" Hikaru brushed Kaoru's bangs aside and paused to look into his eyes, as if searching for remnants of pale gold under the dark contacts. "You should've gone to school to be a writer - or a philosopher."

"Yeah, maybe." Kaoru chuckled, pulling back and propping himself up on his elbows. "But I thought I'd do the responsible thing and actually learn a skill in case mom's company goes belly-up."

"Mom's company is NOT going to go belly-up." Hikaru smirked. "I won't let it. And even if it somehow does, our investments are more than enough to live happily ever after. But seriously" - he added - "Speaking of change, I can't help thinking: I feel a little bad. It seems you're doing all the changing around here. New look, new school, new career, new friends - it doesn't seem fair."

He wasn't the only one who thought so, either. When the twins met Haruhi over coffee at the end of last term and revealed the full extent of their plan, Haruhi - true to form - had immediately put words to the fear that haunted Hikaru for months.

"Well, it's great that you've got it all figured out," she had said, "But it seems Kaoru's the one making all the sacrifices. I'm a little concerned that this might be one of those situations where you love so much you lose touch with who you really are."

But Kaoru had smiled and said that there was nothing to worry about - that who you really were was always in flux, and hardly dependent on what you looked like, where you found yourself, or who you associated with. And while Haruhi had not seemed convinced, she had let the matter rest and no one brought it up again, even as it continued to pull at Hikaru's heartstrings.

Kaoru, however, seemed completely - almost frighteningly - unflapped by the whole situation.

"Nah, it's okay, I don't mind it," he said, stretching out his legs on the bed as he arched his back with a contented sigh. "Besides, I wouldn't change for anyone but you, and at least one of us has to stay true to where we come from."

"But it's hard - starting from scratch."

"Not too hard," Kaoru smiled at the ceiling. "I'm actually kind of excited about it." He sat up quickly and sidled up to Hikaru, taking hold of his chin as his other hand reached down to caress something else entirely. "And so long as I get to come home to THIS, nothing else matters."

A sound somewhere between a gasp and a moan broke from Hikaru's lips as Kaoru's swept by to kiss them. His flesh was already straining against his pants, determined to break free and meet his brother's caress halfway.

"Kaoru… Oh - oh MY - Kaoru..."

Kaoru had dropped down to his knees between the other boy's outstretched legs, and was fiddling with the top button of the his pants, his eyes both mischievous and tender.

"Kaoru," Hikaru whispered, fighting to keep from squirming as torturous tingles raced up his thighs. "You know that's not my favorite…"

"Don't lie," Kaoru smirked as his hand began to massage small, insistent circles into Hikaru's most sensitive spot - just below the tip. "You LOVE finishing in my mouth. And kissing me afterwards to taste your own splooge, you dirty fucker."

Oh, God. Fuck. "Fucker." The word was like sex on his lips. Hikaru genuinely thought he might have died right then and there - but oh, what a good way to go that would have been.

"W-well, yeah…" he stammered. "When we're in a hurry, sure, I like it - But - unghh - I just like seeing that pretty face, is all -" And if I kiss it so hungrily after we're done, it's because I've missed it…

"You like to see that pretty face, eh?" Kaoru chuckled, drinking in the way his brother oscillated between squirming and hyperventilating. "Sounds a bit narcissistic - seeing how it's your face, too…" Hikaru, it seemed, was the only guy alive who did not love blowjobs, and Kaoru missed no opportunity to make fun of him for it.

"Well, we don't look IDENTICAL anymore - unghh - now that you've - anghh - had all that work done…"

"Pshaw, we still look similar enough…"

Kaoru popped the top of Hikaru's pants open, and a sigh shook through the latter. He felt his brother's fingers on his searing flesh, and was instantly gone.

"We can make this fun," Kaoru whispered, his eyes narrowing into slits. "How about this: you sit back, close your eyes, and imagine yourself doing the nastiest, most perverted things you can think of to me. I'll take care of the rest."

"B-but… b-but…" Hikaru made a last, valiant attempt at protest. "What about you - you don't get -"

"Oh, I get plenty out of it. Nothing makes me feel more yours, and nothing makes me feel more like a dirty slut of an uke. Makes me jizz in my pants just to think about it. Now…" He cocked his head with a winsome expression of an apprentice maiko. "Last question for good sir. How would your like it to end? Would you like your love all over my pretty face, or should I swallow like a good boy?"

"Unghh… your call -" Hikaru felt his voice evaporate from his throat as Kaoru's lips brushed against him, teasing with his breath. Another moment, and he had to clench every muscle to keep from lurching backward as his heels dug into the carpet. Eddies of pleasure chased each other up and down his body, and he yearned for something to hold and dissolve them in - by themselves they were too much to handle. And the fact that he could not touch Kaoru, except for his shoulders and hair, was torture. His fingers quivered over the nape of his brother's neck, warm from his efforts, where the hair thinned out before turning into a soft frizz.

And yet - oh, Lord, Kaoru was good at this. Undeniably good. He had said, sometime ago - and Hikaru still found this heartwrenching - that years of sticking fingers down his throat had made it easy. And yet the tight, pulsating warmth of his brother's tongue and mouth, with so many ridges to ride over, left no room for qualms of any kind, however guilty he might have felt at first for enjoying Kaoru's dubiously acquired talent. Part of him - THAT part of him, anyway - was exactly where it wanted to be, and being pleased in a way only Kaoru knew how. It did not matter that from that angle, not only could he not see Kaoru's face, but if he suspended his disbelief just enough he could barely recognize him. It was still Kaoru alright, because Kaoru never did things halfway, and always got what he wanted and delivered what he promised. Indeed, Hikaru was seen by all who knew them as the leader because he always spoke his mind and had the annoying habit of flinging his feelings about like a child. But behind closed doors Kaoru had been the boss of him for many years. He simply hadn't been so obvious about it until recently, nor had Hikaru ever admitted just how much he liked it.

After a few minutes, Hikaru found he could not take it anymore, and let loose down Kaoru's throat. The younger twin froze as he swallowed with a small whimper. A moment passed in silence, and then a shiver ran across Hikaru's thighs as warmth and lips slid down his flesh, suddenly far too sensitive. He felt weak as a newborn baby - the explosion having sapped his strength - but he used the last of what he had to pull his brother into his arms, pressing their foreheads together.

"I don't think I know who you are," he whispered. "But I'm pretty sure you're the fucking love of my life."

Kaoru smiled and pressed his lips against his brother's.

"Okay, cool," he said. "Now taste yourself, you blowjob-hating fucker."


	5. Room Number Three

AGE 18-19, First Year of University

Part 2: Room Number Three

At first, Kaoru could not figure out why Tamiko had been a ronin for a year.

Even in a class of Japan's best and brightest, her stamina and wit put her a cut above the rest. She certainly stayed in the library later than everyone, and Kaoru never saw facebook (tm), tumblr (tm), or yahoo chat** (tm) flash across her screen as she burned the midnight oil. And while a stranger might have judged her to be silly and air-headed, baby-faced and fond of florals as she was, Tamiko answered more in-class questions than anyone else - correctly and for the most part bravely. Before long, many of their classmates were coming to her for explanations when textbooks and lectures were not enough, and the sight of Tamiko in front of a white board, smiling through an explanation of the Krebs cycle as though she were sharing news with friends was beacon of hope for put-upon students everywhere. In time, Tamiko even asked Kaoru if he wanted to lead a study group with her. He agreed, and Tamiko's gentle, simple (but never too-simple) explanations - along with his colorful diagrams - proved an indispensable resource for their fellow sufferers at the yoke of higher education. They even took up jokingly answering their phones when their classmates called as "TamikoandKaoru - he draws, she explains - at your service." From then on, they spent nearly all their time working together on something or other, and Tamiko's words had indeed become prophetic. They had become friends. It was simply impossible not to.

(**for some bizarre reason, the instant messenger of choice in Japan seems to be Yahoo chat)

But the cherry trees had shed their pink froth, the thermometer began to rise, and before long it was summer and the first set of exams was just around the corner. By that point, the usually bubbly Tamiko began to grow quieter by the day, often rushing off right after study group without a goodbye. At first, Kaoru wrote it off to pre-exam nerves. After all, they had fallen into a pattern where they shared many things, but there were also things that they could easily assume about each other by virtue of their common condition as intellectual proletariat. It was therefore not until the night before the test, when the study group had been going strong for seven hours and was down to its last four members, that he got the real answer.

"Okay, blah, blah, hot, swollen knuckles, kidney stones, uric acid, blah, blah, patient has gout - what do we do?" read Kaoru, squinting into the packet of review questions. He looked up at his friends, who were all fighting fatigue with varying degrees of success - a pot of coffee sitting ceremoniously in the middle of the table. "Takasaki, what do we do?"

Takasaki, a rough-around-the-edges frat boy type and a regular at the study groups - possibly on account of Tamiko's qualities beyond her brains - woke with a spasmodic snore and fell forward.

"Uh… Check their vitals?… Ask them if they smoke?" - he mumbled, blinking his eyes.

"No, we know what he has. What do we do?"

"Arghhhh..." Takasaki buried his face in his elbows with a groan. "The extent to which I don't care right now is staggering..."

"Yeah, I feel you there, but what if you had a patient who had gout?"

"I'd tell them to eat less meat, drink less wine, and stop being a little bitch."

"Well, that's one way of doing it." Kaoru smiled civilly. "But this is multiple choice. I think they're looking for a drug. Something in the vein of allo - allo-what?"

"Allo-operator, can you please connect me to the nearest suicide club 'cuz I'm at the end of my rope?" said Tamiko dully into her notes.

"Huh?"

"Purinol," she said hastily. "Allopurinol."

"Alright, guys," said Kaoru, quickly shutting his binder. "I think we should call it a night. Sleep's probably going to do more good at this point anyway."

"A-men," said Takasaki, sliding his chair back almost too quickly. Tamiko and the fourth die-hard, a girl named Mayumi, began to gather their things as well and Kaoru did the same, but when the other two were almost out the door he hung back and paused by Tamiko, who looked like she was moving through water.

"Hey." He tried to catch her eyes. "You okay?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure? That joke of yours made me a little nervous."

Tamiko's hands pause over her bag.

"It's just a joke. I didn't mean anything by it."

The other two had gone, and Kaoru pushed the door to the study room shut.

"Tami-chan," he said, doing his utmost to tread lightly, "Are you worried about the exam?"

She stood over her things, her fingers molded around the strap of her bag, and looked unshaken as a piece of marble aside from the blush that had been turning her cheeks a deeper and deeper red. Kaoru waited, and the streetlights outside the window flickered.

"Kaoru, there is something I haven't told you," she said slowly. "It has to do with why I was a ronin for a year."

She paused, scrunching up her face as if bracing for a shot.

"Oh?" Kaoru raised his eyes, willing the rest of his face into paralysis. He had definitely wondered about that, in fact he had almost been morbidly curious, but had eventually chalked it up to illness on test day or some other extraneous factor.

"I didn't pass the entrance exam the first time because I didn't TAKE the entrance exam," she said, her voice lifeless. "I got about five minutes in, but I was too nervous and couldn't take it anymore. I ran out of the room screaming, and tried to run through a glass door."

Were he with anyone else, anywhere else, Kaoru would have needed all the composure he had been gathering into a fist just to keep a straight face. But given the fact that it was Tamiko, and she stood waiting for his reaction like a lamb before a butcher's knife, he squared away his amusement and let his lips drift into a soft smile.

"Well, Tami-chan," he said. "I'm glad you told me, but I definitely don't blame you. The university entrance exam is one scary-ass test." He recalled the day he had taken it, and when the proctor called stop, it was the only time in his life that he had ever looked down and seen his knees physically shaking. After that, he was a basket case for two weeks, avoiding Hikaru and his imbecilic parrot-praise and bursting into tears when there was no one in sight. In fact, the physical letter with the results was the only thing that convinced him that he had not failed the damn thing, and even then it took a while to believe that it wasn't just a clever Photoshop effort on Hikaru's part.

He paused to survey her expression, but she looked no less like a lamb being led to slaughter, so he continued. "But look, you're here. You've been on top of your game all semester. You're always helping others, you always get the tough questions in class, and we've been practicing all week. What makes you think tomorrow should be any different?" Indeed, it was not a naive question. He had kept his voice very measured, but even so - he was fighting very hard not to take her by the shoulders and scream, "but you KNOW this - you know it better than me, better than all of us!"

But she was still looking at the table. "No, you don't understand," she said, so quietly that the buzzing of the fluorescent lamps nearly drowned out her voice. Her chest and shoulders shook under her generously ruffled top. "Tomorrow actually COUNTS. And when it counts, I freeze up and it feels like everything I've studied is gone and I'm going to fail."

Kaoru sighed, trying his best to make the air escape his chest less-than-audibly. Bad as he felt for Tamiko, when it came to test anxiety it was the blind leading the blind. And if Tamiko's joke and the thought of her empty chair in the lecture hall had sent an electric shock down his spine, it hadn't made his own problem disappear. It had merely helped him get out of his own head a little bit.

"Look" - he made another effort to gather himself - "To be honest, I feel the same way. But from what I heard from the upperclassmen - and as logic suggests - getting in is tough, but once you're in, the only way you can fail is if you don't do the work. And you and I have been definitely doing the work."

"I guess." She sighed, tightening her grip on the strap.

…

The next morning, the hallway outside the auditorium was crowded and abuzz, and Kaoru made his way past clusters of classmates - some standing in groups, some leafing through books, some leaning against the walls mumbling to themselves. As he walked, he tried to avoid making much eye contact. The whole thing reminded him of a class trip to Israel in middle school: they had gone to see the Wailing Wall, and if back then the sight of people praying and swaying, invariably in groups of ten, had conjured up visions of despair so black it threatened to pull in anyone who stood too close, this time the sentiment was doubly true. To keep his vision from tunneling and his legs from giving way, he kept his eyes peeled for Tamiko, and before long he saw her, huddling at the end of the hall between a trash can and a fire hydrant, her knees pulled up to her chin and her hands over her face.

He knelt down next to her and gently pulled her hands away.

"Hey." He made a pointed effort to smile, for the first time that day.

"I don't think I can do this, Kaoru," Tamiko whispered. Her cheeks were dry, but her eyes were glassy. "It doesn't matter that I've been doing the work. It's all gone. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna ki-"

"No, Tami-chan. That's not true. And don't say that…" He tightened his hold on her wrists. "I know what you're going to say. But don't DO that. Please."

Kaoru paused, struggling to settle his heartbeat - which echoed relentlessly in his ears. He felt the information leaking out of his head with every stroke - but right then it didn't matter.

"Tami-chan, tell me again why you decided to come to med school."

Tamiko raised her eyes and seemed suddenly notice that her hands were in his. She tried to pull them away, but he held them firmly.

"And tell me the truth."

"W-what do you mean?"

"I said, tell me the truth. Are you doing this for your parents? Or maybe for someone else? Are you afraid of disappointing someone? Because if you are, I want you to go to the station right now, get on the next train for Shiga prefecture, and tell whoever it is to stuff themselves. Because if you're not doing it for yourself, it's not worth feeling this way. Nothing is."

Tamiko's face worked spasmodically for a second, and Kaoru thought he saw tears in the corners of her eyes. But she seemed to quickly gain the upper hand, and her features settled back into marble. For a few more moments, she seemed to be struggling to say something, but just as she opened her mouth the auditorium doors snapped open and the echo ricocheted down the hallway, startling both her and Kaoru so much he let go of her hands.

…

The first question proved mercifully easy, and while every step of the way to his chair Kaoru had feared he would pull a Tamiko and spend the first five minutes staring at his sheet only to run out of the room screaming, after he was one page it was smooth sailing throughout. Indeed, sailing was perhaps the wrong word. Rather, he had plunged in head-first, and did not surface until the proctor called pencils down three hours later. Somehow, he even managed to forget about Tamiko - whose situation had sat in the back of his mind and - paradoxically - kept him feeling both afloat and besieged from yet another side for the last twelve hours. Flipping back through his test, he hazarded a smile. If nothing else, he had answered every question, and had even mentally hi-fived himself a few times as he picked out tricks planted by the test writers. His knees were shaking - yes - but the residual adrenaline rushing through his brain whispered that at this point it was almost to be expected. It was medical school, after all.

He looked around the room - which had exploaded as the proctor called time. Takasaki - a few chairs away - was fist-bumping everyone in reach and Kaoru gave him a thumbs-up as he caught his eye. Mayumi and her two neighbors were hot on the trail debating answers. The boy on his right looked like he had had his spine ripped out of his back, and a few others were gesticulating, even as some less-than-flattering descriptions of their head lecturer rose above the noise. But as Kaoru's eyes fell on the chair where Tamiko had sat, his stomach dropped to his knees. It was empty. His eyes darted to the door. It had just shut - but not before he thought he saw a blur of floral fabric and curls that sent a mule-kick straight to his chest.

Kaoru jumped out of his chair like one possessed, nearly knocking the thing over, and darted to the front of the room, shoving his test in the hand of one of the assistant-proctors. He ignored her as she grumbled something to the tune of "first-years" and "how-hard-is-it-to-follow-protocol" - and was in the hall in a a matter of seconds. The other classes had also just gotten out, and for a few frustrating moments the hall was inundated by bodies. By the time he had muscled his way outside, he was almost sure that Tamiko would be gone without a trace. More than that, the blood in his head was back, and he struggled to focus his vision in the sunlight. He squinted and he thought - he THOUGHT he caught half a glimpse of Tamiko's skirt across the quad - the broomstick sort she wore a lot, billowing in the wind. And while part of him knew it was ridiculous - nobody could pick out anybody else at that range - who else at Todai would have any reason to look like they were running for their life at that moment?

He took off running without another thought, cutting across the green, nearly colliding with a second-year who hailed him and asked - with what would have been a sunny expression - how the test had gone, and scattering a flock of pigeons. He then proceeded to leave his footprints across the picnic blanket of a couple of girls who were half-studying, half-sunning on the lawn, apologized profusely, leaped over a bench, and emerged on the other side of only to dart between two buildings into the street. Once there, he nearly knocked five salary men and an office lady off their feet before catching sight of the piece of floral fabric again. And yet, he only really caught up with her on the top step of the descent into the subway.

"Tami-chan!" He seized her by the shoulder.

For a second he was worried it was not her, but she spun around, and tears were streaming down her plump cheeks, her lips quivering unabashedly. She looked like she had dropped eight years, and was barely into her teens as she puffed out her lips in a sad imitation of a scowl.

"Get away from me, KAO-chan."

"Tamiko," - in another situation, he might have struggled to bracket his incredulity that soft-spoken Tamiko had said something so brusque - "I need to know you're okay. That you're not going to - do anything."

"Ok, well, I'm NOT okay," she spat messily, pulling away from his grip and wiping tears with her sleeve, "It was awful. I kept second-guessing myself on everything… And now I have no idea -" Her voice collapsed, and so did what seemed like her entire torso.

"Well, look," said Kaoru tentatively, taking a step toward her and making a move to take her hand. "At least it's over now…"

But she had turned her back and was walking quickly down the steps before he could finish.

"Tamiko, come back here!" He ran after her, cursing under his breath. Who would have thought girls in platformed shoes could walk so quickly? And to add insult to injury, he had nearly caught up with her again when a crowd of people who had just gotten off the train flooded the staircase. When Kaoru finally extricated himself from the jostling mass of suits, Tamiko was already on the other side of the tourniquet, walking briskly to the platforms. He choked down another curse and rifled through his wallet for his train pass, doing his best to keep his eyes on the floral pattern. Once through, he took off running again, diving into the fluorescent, checker-tiled world of the underground just in time to see her disappear around a corner.

When he caught sight of her again - there was only one platform - his whole body felt like someone had taken a grappling hook and sliced him right down the middle. Tamiko was standing still - very still - on the yellow line that lined the tracks, and was looking downward.

"Tamiko!" he yelled, "No! - fuck no!"

He bolted up to her, aiming to seize her wrist, but she stepped aside such that he nearly lost his balance and fell over the edge.

"Tamiko, what are you doing?!"

She looked up at him, and though her face was sodden with tears she was no longer grimacing.

"Y-you won't understand," she said in a small voice, her light-brown curls shaking with the rest of her. "I- I appreciate all you've done for me, Kaoru, and - and you've been a good friend. But… I can't take any chances. The people at home… They… They SAID they want to see Miss Goodie Two Shoes Honor Student get broken by the big city and come crying home. They think - They think I think I'm too good for our town. And they WANT me to fail."

"No way… they said that about YOU?!"

Tamiko nodded, freezing as a new volley of tears threatened to lyse her from the inside.

"Yeah… my mom… She… She turned out to be a… And, well, after what happened, no one expected any good to come of me, and they've been waiting for things to end badly ever since…"

"What happened?"

But Tamiko quickly turned red to the roots of her hair, and her knees had begun to knock under her skirt. She buried her face in her hands.

"I… I can't…"

"O…kay," Kaoru paused, suddenly noticing his throat was parched. "Well, in any case, don't you want to find out how you did first, before you do anything rash -?"

"I KNOW how I did," she retorted in the voice of a five-year-old child stomping her foot. "I don't need to see it to know it. I choked and I screwed up. Like I knew I would. Like I always do. That's all there is to it."

"I still don't think you should do this, Tamiko."

"Why not?" Her tiny chin shot up and for a moment she looked almost defiant. "It's… the honorable thing to do, isn't it? When you've failed?"

As they were talking, the platform had been quiet and empty, apart from a few fellow passengers who sat on benches detached as the dead, buried in cell phones and newspapers. But just as Tamiko finished speaking the low drone of an train began to rise and she took a step toward backwards, away from Kaoru and toward the edge.

"Yeah, no," Kaoru said, a hard note of acid rising in his voice. "Maybe a hundred years ago -" He wilted momentarily as she flashed another menacing look - or as menacing a look that could be mustered with cheeks as peachy as hers. "Listen, I -"

Her features were quickly turning to stone again, and he took a deep breath.

"I don't want you to do it - IF that means anything. I know we've only been friends for a few months, but I will not lose another friend to suicide. I'll throw myself on those tracks first, if that's what it takes."

The sound of the train was growing louder, and had begun to stop both their ears. Tamiko scrunched up her forehead and took another step defiantly away, staring at him from under knotted eyebrows. He took a step as well, hoping to seize her by the arm and bar her physically from jumping, but she twisted out of his grasp and broke into a run. The noise of the train became a roar and she ran faster, but as she tried to dodge to her side and jump, she felt a sharp pull against her scalp as her body lurched to the other side. Her heart - already in her throat - nearly jumping out of her body with all the attached blood vessels.

When she opened her eyes, she and Kaoru were on the floor in a tangle of limbs, and a uniformed man was standing over them. The train had come to a halt, and the other passengers were peering over their shoulders hesitating to board.

"Miss, is this man bothering you?"

Tamiko sat up and rubbed the side of her head, which was buzzing, and turned to Kaoru, who looked shaken, but had not moved away. He was looking at her at a little sadly, his skin uncharacteristically pale under the fluorescent lamps, and she suddenly grew conscious of his leg under her calf, her skirt a messy tourniquet around them both.

She looked back up at the train conductor.

"This man just saved my life," she said. "So, yes, I guess you could say he's bothering me…" A small smile flickered across her face.

…

"So how was ye olde trial by fire?" The chime-clock above the mantelpiece had just chimed nine when Hikaru waltzed in, tipsy as usual from his thursday night pub crawl with his university social club, and tossed his hat onto the rack. "All dragons vanquished?" He swooped down with a flourish to kiss Kaoru's waiting lips - the latter uncurling himself from his favorite upholstered chair, where he had been cuddling with a glass of watered-down umeshu and his laptop.

"Lemme guess… three beers and a sake bomb?" He chuckled. "You're mixing metaphors again."

"Correct-amando!" Hikaru beamed, falling into his brother's lap and sprawling his limbs over the arms of the chair. "Right diagnosis as usual, Doctor Holmes." He hiccuped. "Down to the drop."

"Great." Kaoru planted a kiss on his cheek and Hikaru arched his back, cat-like, letting his hands and feet nearly touch the floor.

"No, really how did it go?"

"Well, I did hear a couple horror stories - someone used just the supplementary textbook to study and is convinced they missed all the freebies, someone else didn't realize there was a second part to the exam, one person attempted suicide ruined salary man-style**, and a few people have plans to burn the professor in effigy over the weekend. But none of those people are me, so we'll see what happens. I'm pretty sure I passed, anyway."

(**jumping under a train was for a long time the suicide method of choice for middle-aged Japanese men)

"Well, good. That's all that's important." Hikaru straightened up and jumped out of the chair, stretching out his hands. "My brilliant, future doctor of a brother. I never doubted you could do it. Not for a moment."

Kaoru chucked and got up, taking his brother's proffered hands.

"Well, let's not count the chickens before they hatch," he said, hanging back a bit as Hikaru wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled him into a hug, nibbling up his neck. "Who knows, they might decide we're all a bunch of idiots and fail us all…"

"Well, in that case, you'll still be the smartest idiot of them all." Hikaru paused, having reached his jaw.

"Yeah. Right."

"And the smartest person in THIS room since that time you made me roleplay Einstein…"

"Yeah, that was great." Kaoru began to chuckle in his belly in spite of himself… "Honey," he quipped in a falsetto voice - "You have GOT to change your shirt - it smells SO BAD!"

"Ohhh, honey, but why-y-y?" Hikaru moaned, sucking in a mouthful of neck as his hands traveled down to his brother's hips - "That's just the smell of lu-u-u-urv, what's so bad about it?…"

"Well at least cut your hair" - Kaoru made a show of looking repulsed - "You look like a rabid dog!"

"Honey, on a quantum level, the scissors can't even touch my hair…"

Kaoru was struggling not to squirm, but failed mightily in the face of a particularly powerful paroxysm of giggles and ended up doubling over, pulling himself out of Hikaru's grasp. He collapsed on the floor and laughed for a good minute, and when he opened his eyes, Hikaru was on the floor next to him, staring unblinking at his face with a glassy smile.

"No, seriously, Einstein," said Kaoru, pausing for a second to smile at just how nice Hikaru's peachy skin looked, framed by the exotic whorls of the rug. "I wanted to get your opinion on something."

"Oh yeah, what is it, dahling?" Hikaru flipped over to his stomach and propped his hands under his chin, kicking up his legs. Even after all those years, Hikaru - even when not-quite-there - had a remarkable talent for looking at his brother as if nothing else existed, and he was a ten-year-old child presented with a toy so desired and so precious, he wanted nothing more than to gaze at it all day.

"Well," Kaoru propped himself up on his elbows. "I've been thinking of starting a club."

"A club?" Hikaru turned over and lay back so they were facing in the same direction, and fixed his eyes on the baroque patterns framing the ceiling. It was well into summer, and the sun was only just beginning to set, washing pink over the walls and ceiling. "What sort of kind club? Not a host club, by any chance?" He chuckled, turning over to Kaoru and pinching his cheek.

"No, more like a… suicide prevention club."

"Oh… Cheerful." Hikaru smiled, pressing his lips together.

"Or maybe more generally, a mental health awareness club."

"Oh, okay. Well, that's definitely up your alley. Might be good practice for the future, too."

"But the thing is, I kind of want to make it more of a service group. Like - there are a lot of things people can't talk to their friends or family about because they don't want to lose face, and there's a lot of stigma associated with going to a professional. So many people don't see one until they're really far gone. But wouldn't it be great if there was someone you could talk to anonymously, whether on the phone, online, or in person... Maybe a student just like you, but who's sworn to secrecy and whom you might never meet otherwise? After all, Todai's a really big place."

"That sounds interesting. Go on."

"I mean, would you go to something like that if you had a problem?"

Hikaru shrugged. "Yeah, why not. Assuming I was absolutely sure it was confidential. I mean, what would you do if you came and it WAS somebody you knew?"

"Well, ideally there would be multiple people in the group, and if whoever's on duty is someone you know, they could call someone else. Or we can have multiple people on duty at once. We'd have to figure that out, depending on how many people are interested…"

"Alright." Hikaru reached over and laced his fingers with Kaoru's. He then moved closer, so their bodies were molded into each other even as they both lay staring at the ceiling.

"The only thing is, I'm not sure how to… market it, as it were. Or what to even call it."

"Oh?" Hikaru had taken up Kaoru's arm and had begun to kiss from the knuckles to the wrist.

"I mean, I don't want to push the mental health thing a WHOLE lot. A lot of people just don't see themselves that way, and it might deter them."

"So, it's just… talking and listening and making people feel better, right?"

"Yeah, more or less."

"Well, in the Host Club there was lots of talking and lots of listening and cheering people up."

"Hikaru." Kaoru chuckled. The ceiling had begun to turn periwinkle. "Seriously, I get that you miss high school, but not everything can be a host club."

"Okay, fine." Hikaru let go of Kaoru's hand and snaked his arm under his neck, the better to fold himself around him. "But seriously. I know what WE did was more along the entertainment line, but the girls who came to see Tamaki - they definitely told him things. Private things. It must've been the princely thing - as in, your honor's safe with me, milady…" He brushed his lips against Hikaru's neck, perhaps to make it clear that the term "milady" was not just a descriptor of Tamaki's regulars.

"Okay, fair enough," Kaoru echoed, feeling the pitter-patter of warmth down his spine right on cue. He wondered, vaguely what he thought he was expecting, trying to have a semi-serious conversation with a tipsy Hikaru rolling around on the floor. And yet it felt rather sweet - and, for the lack of a better word, perfect - as if they were rug rats again. The only thing missing was a couple of panda onesies and him letting Hikaru get the best of him wrestling. "And I wouldn't be averse to having a similar atmosphere to the host club - as in show up, have a seat, have a cup of tea and a chat. But the problem is, people have very specific associations with the idea of a Host Club. I don't think we can sell it as something as innocent and thoroughly unsketchy as we did in high school."

"Ok then - how about… Confessional?"

"Too religious. We don't want to alienate the whole non-Christian crowd. As in, you know, about 98% percent of the population."

"Point." Hikaru pressed his lips together. "How about 'tell us your secrets?' Or 'your secret's safe with us'?"

"Too… sketchy."

"Need to talk?"

"Hm. I think you may have something there…" Kaoru mused for a moment as he smiled at nothing in particular. "Need to talk? Tea and confidential conversation" - he rolled the words over on his tongue.

"I like it."

"How much?" Kaoru turned quickly his side, popping his eyes at his brother with a broad smile suddenly splayed across his face.

"Mm, almost as much as I like you" - smiled Hikaru, pulling him into a take-no-prisoners embrance. "But no, actually. Not nearly."

…

"Everyone, thanks for coming," said Kaoru, standing up and casting a look over the room. "Vice President Inoue and I" - he glanced at Tamiko, who sat primly by his side, fresh and glowing under her curls - "Honestly, we did not expect such a good turnout."

Indeed - more than sixty people had packed into the small classroom they had reserved for the evening. In fact, there were so many more people than expected that Tamiko ran out of homemade pastries halfway through. And many of those who came were people they did not know - that is, not medical students. Well, all the better - he thought. Students from other faculties had more free time, and it would be easier to make the commitment.

"So you are all here," he began tentatively - belatedly realizing that he had woefully little experience in speaking to causes he believed in - "Because you already know, innately, how to be a good listener. Maybe you're the person all your friends come to with their problems. Or maybe you just want to help people and think this is the best way. Now, we're a bit different, as far as peer counseling groups go. Our goal is to make a place where people can go and talk about anything, without fear of blowback, or gossip, or anyone judging them. We won't necessarily give advice - but almost everyone has something they wish they could vent about or talk through with someone, right?"

He paused, looking from face to face for a something like comprehension. Having found it in a few, he went on.

"There will be interviews - which you can sign up for at the end. But before you do, I'd really like to stress that knowing some of things your peers can't tell anyone else is a BIG responsibility." He paused again. "But don't let that intimidate you. If you join, you'll get full training on all the right things to say, and the right way to handle a crisis. In fact, by the end you'll be something of an amateur psychologist." He smiled. "Any questions so far?"

A hand went up in the back of the room.

"Yes?" said Tamiko.

"Excuse me, but you never said what the club's going to be called," said the speaker, whom Kaoru could not see.

"Oh, that's easy." He smiled, pulling his dazzling Host Club smile out of a long-forgotten drawer with a spark in his eye. "Our tagline is THAT," he gestured at the blackboard behind him, where "Need to talk? Tea and Confidential Conversation" was written in large multi-colored letters. "But our main goal was to keep people from assuming things, so we decided to go with the name of the space we were able to reserve. Room Number Three."


	6. Double Jeopardy

AGE 19, First Year of University

Part 3: Double Jeopardy

Having rescued Tamiko from near-death under the wheels of a train, Kaoru began to notice an inconvenient side effect only a few weeks later. First, Tamiko began showing up to school having tried what was an obviously new lipstick or nailpolish every few days, and seemed sad when he pretended not to notice. Then, she also took up vacillating between sitting too close to him and too far, and sometimes, from the corner of his eye, he would notice her doodling absently as she stared out the window. On top of that, when they were one-on-one she fell silent more and more often, and when the study group took breaks and discussed dating she always bit her lip, cast a furtive, wistful look at him, and made no comment. 

For weeks and months, he tried to ignore it. A part of him hoped she would simply forget it. Their club was going well, and beyond the public service they provided, its thirty-odd members -- two staffed each night, and thus everyone had two monthly shifts -- became a sort of friend group. Privy to the secrets of the student body and sworn to secrecy as they were, they could not help but confide in each other. The academic grind, too, kept them all so busy they hardly had time to blink. And so the seasons turned: fall swept away summer and congealed into winter, and before Kaoru knew it, Christmas and New Year's had come and gone, and Valentine's day was right around the corner. As the calendar turned to February, he knew he could swallow the uncomfortable thought of Tamiko and her soft looks for very much longer. And so he waited for the day with a mix of dread and fatalism, and was not surprised at all when in addition to the boxes of candy from sundry female classmates, his cubby in the library had a gift from Tamiko as well, though the card bore a slightly more personal message**.

(**In Japan, women give send men gifts and cards on Valentine's day, while men return the favor on "White Day," which is on March 14.)

They had an appointment to meet, as usual, in one of the small-group study rooms in the library after class. Kaoru had decided to get there early, and was concentrating for all he was worth on not letting his guilt overflow when Tamiko finally walked in. Her eyes were fixed on the ground and she was clutching her bag -- the same one she carried when they met -- as if it contained her entire livelihood.

"Tami-chan" -- Kaoru decided to cut to the chase and held up the box and card. She froze like a rabbit before a snake. "I really appreciate the courage it must've taken you to write this, and you're one of my favorite people. Really. But I can't. I'm sorry."

Tamiko's eyes were already bright and seemed to be held open by invisible stents, and no sooner than the words were out of his mouth that her whole face began to quake and she collapsed violently into a chair. 

"I… I knew it." Her voice quivered. "I'm such an idiot…" He waited for her to bury her face in her hands. Strictly speaking, it was not as if he had never let a girl down easy before. He and Hikaru had been doing it since primary school, and had even derived a sick joy from it. But that was then -- before the world had ceased to be divided into "us" and "them." Before Haruhi. Before the Host Club. Before… everything.

"No, Tami-chan…" He came over and knelt beside her so his head was below hers. "You're not an idiot. You're very brave, and you're amazing, and after all we've been through in this place, I care about you. A lot. But I can't." He paused. "There's… someone else."

She let her eyes meet his, and to her surprise they were not crying. Rather, she suddenly had a hard, faraway look.

"You know, speak for yourself," she said.

"Huh?"

"Really? Someone else?" She threw him a look like if he were a toad or something equally distasteful. "We've known each for other nearly a year, we spend all our time together, and you haven't mentioned liking anyone ONCE. And now suddenly there's someone else? Right."

"Tamiko, you don't understand…"

"Why have I never heard about this someone else? I thought we told each other everything! I told you about my test anxiety, and the people back home, and about mom… " The blush in her cheeks had begun to gathering steam, and tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. She paused, and her face hardened into a glare again. "You know, you don't have to lie. If you don't feel the same, just say so."

"No, Tamiko, there REALLY IS SOMEONE ELSE. It's a bit complicated, but it's pretty… well… serious."

"Oh, really? Serious? Okay, fine --" She got up with a huff, still clutching her bag. "CONGRATULATIONS. I hope you end up very happy together, once you figure out whatever it is that's so complicated." She scoffed. "And by the way -- I don't know about you, but from where I stand that's kind of a big part of your life to keep secret."

She turned and marched to the door.

"Don't follow me," she spat over her shoulder. "Don't worry -- I won't DO anything." 

From the moment she began shouting at him, Kaoru had felt thoroughly dismembered, and even after she slammed the door behind her and the room fell silent, it still took took a few seconds for him to remember what was what.

Don't follow her? Enough time had passed since their first exam for him to trust her on that point. After that day, she had indeed begun to tell him everything and anything, and had insisted that it really did curb her urges to take a sharp object to her wrists. He also knew -- though thankfully not through personal experience -- that an angry Tamiko with gel nails was a weapon of mass destruction second only to Honey. And at any rate, he had new nothing to say, and knew very well how annoying it could be when someone trailed you and begged forgiveness when you were not yet ready for parlay. Indeed, it was something Hikaru did all the time, and it was one of Kaoru's least favorite things about him.

He took a deep breath, put Tamiko's gift in his backpack, and cracked open the door to the hall.

"Ladies --" He said, casting a frigid look over a group of girls who looked as if they had been huddling under the door trying to read lips through chinks in the blinds. "Don't we have a quiz to study for?"

He turned on his heel before they could answer, and was well on his way out when Takasaki caught up with him halfway across the main hall.

"Yo! Hitachi!" he called, "Did I hear right -- you turned down Inoue? Sorry, half the class had bets, but my question is: are you crazy -- or just gay as a picnic basket? I mean, who the hell turns down THOSE knockers?!"

"Not a good time, Takasaki…" Kaoru muttered under his breath.

"Listen, if you don't want her, would you it mind if I --?"

"You know what? Go fuck yourself, Takasaki," said Kaoru, pushing his classmate in the chest so hard the latter nearly fell against a bookshelf in surprise.

It was the rudest thing Kaoru had done all year.

…

Takasaki had been right: a good chunk of the class really did have money riding on his and Tamiko's love life. Roughly a third thought they were the perfect couple and that it was high time they realized that, another third was convinced Kaoru was gay, and the rest were not sure and waited with bated breath for the outcome. And in the end, the sight of Tamiko in tears running out of the study room was all the news that they needed. To get away from the people who had either lost or won money because of him that day, Kaoru decided to go home early.

In keeping with his commoner role, when he was not pressed for time Kaoru took the subway. And that day it proved a godsend, because he could not have focused on schoolwork if he tried. Indeed, he decided to take the longer route, and stared listlessly out the window as the train emerged into the sunlight. 

The devil had turned his tongue to blurt out the bit about the someone else -- and yet part of him had been looking for an opportunity all along. With everyone else, he had slipped comfortably into his role of Hitachi from Hokkaido, and it was just what he needed to get a new lease in life. In fact, he hardly missed his old one. And it was easy: the med students' camaraderie was based largely on the here and now, and in the face of drug lists, latin muscle names, and endless lists of facts to memorize, where they came from and who they left behind had grown largely irrelevant. 

But Tamiko was the one person he felt terrible lying to, even if it was only by omission. She had been right -- she DID tell him everything. She even told him about the time her mother had driven her car off a viaduct, and was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.3 -- her mother was an alcoholic, and no one had ever thought to let her know. And Kaoru, too, had always told her a good deal of what went on in his head. But then again, it wasn't just that. With Tamiko, everything was always so… simple. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and always spoke her mind, and a kinder mind Kaoru could hardly imagine knowing. Indeed, Tamiko was the sort of girl who spent an afternoon putting a baby bird back in its nest, and dragged stray animals home to nurse back to health, and stopped to talk to homeless people in the park -- the last being something Kaoru observed more than once, bewildered, as they walked to the subway station at the end of an evening. And if Tami-chan threw tanties and had a hard time holding back, the fact that she was sweet as honey the rest of the time made it easy to forgive her. 

Indeed, in a different world -- a world where things made more sense -- he could easily imagine falling in love with her. As balconies rushed past the window, laundry billowing in the wind -- he imagined them sharing sundaes, riding a ferris wheel on a weekend after exams, him lifting her up and spinning her around, pocket-sized as she was, and burying his face in her bosom. He imagined them taking the train to Shiga to meet her family, and then going out to an izakaya for drinks after her father gave them his blessing. He imagined them settling into a house together, in a nice unassuming part of Tokyo, perhaps with an apple or a cherry tree in front. Then finding jobs at the same hospital and having tea on tatami mats as they talked about their days, her body soft and inviting under a demure lace nightie. One day, they might even have a child or two -- seeing how Tamiko, so gentle and kind, seemed to be made for motherhood. For either Kaoru Hitachi or Kaoru Hitachiin, it might have been a very good outcome. 

But the world DIDN'T make sense. And nothing in his life had ever been simple. And even if he did try to spring for a life with Tamiko -- the sort that would take all his troubles away -- he still had the nagging feeling that he would never be happy. Not while Hikaru still walked the same earth, anyway.

…

Kaoru rose out of his chair to meet Hikaru as soon as he came in -- for the last six hours, his books had been a lost cause anyway. That week had seen another frost, and as he watched Hikaru unbutton his tailored coat, the latter's eyes glassy and his cheeks blotchy as a victorian era TB patient's, Kaoru could not help but feel guilty.

"Hello, darling, happy Valentine's." Hikaru put his arms around Kaoru and hugged him more tightly than he expected. "How was your day? Good?"

"Yeah. There was a bit of drama at school, what with it being Valentine's day, but ultimately it was okay."

Hikaru had buried his face in the angle of his neck and shoulder, but pulled back and studied his face.

"How about you" -- Kaoru asked hastily. "How was your day?"

Kaoru's hands had reached under Hikaru's coat to hug him back, but the warmth of his brother's body and the way his heart pounded against his ribs made him feel guiltier still, so he motioned him to turn around as he helped him out of the heavy garment.

"Oh, don't ask," Hikaru sighed, dragging his feet to the bed and collapsing into it as Kaoru squared the coat away into the closet. The task done, the younger twin came over and sat by his brother's side.

"First, my laptop died -- with all my stuff on it," Hikaru began, turning over on his back as Kaoru reached to take his hand. "Then, mom told me all my latest edits were crap and that I was crap, and that, being crap, I had to redo them. And Shar's in bed with the flu, so she couldn't help me. And then this snooty bitch heiress we've got working for us -- goodness knows why, I didn't hire her -- all the interns she's in charge of quit because they couldn't take her anymore. One's even suing for psychological damage. So obviously mom fires her and tells ME that now it's up to me -- I either have find new interns or do all their work. And where the hell am I supposed I get ten interns right about now?"

"But that can't possibly be your job -- finding interns?"

"Oh, Christ, my job is to do anything mom tells me."

"But you've got school --"

"And that's another thing. School. I shouldn't've even gone in today. I walk in, ten minutes late on account of that accident on the expressway -- well, you might've heard about it on the news. And the lecturer sees me and asks me a question on what he just went over -- right off the doorstep, the douche bag. And I obviously have no idea what's going on, and there's a paper due in a day that I haven't even started, and I think that was the last nail in the coffin. There's no way he's going to give me another extension now…" He paused, drawing a ragged breath. "And don't even get me started on how we had our club meeting today, and the leaders got into a huge bitch-fight, right in front of everyone, and forced everyone to choose sides. And then, after all that, I go to do some crying and some paper-writing in the peace, only to have Tamaki call and go on for an hour about some problem he has with Haruhi. I don't even remember what it was --"

"Hikaru" -- Kaoru put a hand on his brother's shoulder -- "Seriously. That's not your job. None of it is, except school potentially. Maybe you need to tell mom she's going to have to do without you for a little while."

"I can't." Hikaru buried his face in his hands, pulling his knees up. "I'm in too deep, and mom's not the only one I'll be letting down." 

Hikaru's cheeks still radiated like a furnace, and he took Kaoru's hand in his and brought it closer to his face. He examined the lines, looking a little sad, and pressed it to his cheek as the muscles of his throat tensed. 

"Anyway," he said with a swallow, "All I thought about all day was you. How I was going to come home and see you, and how it would all be okay."

"Aw. Hikaru." 

Hikaru's cheek was warm -- far warmer than it should have been. It suddenly became harder to breathe and Kaoru felt queasy in his stomach. 

"Hikaru, you look sick," he said quickly. "Let's get you under the covers. And I think you need some water. Or tea. Do you want tea?" 

"I… No. I don't. I just want you." Hikaru's voice shook and would have sounded desperate if it wasn't half-dead. "I love you."

Darn. It seemed like he was going to have to cordon off his issues and share his brother's bed after all that night, as deserving of being flogged as he felt for cheating on him, if only in thought. And yet, this could not go on for very much longer. Strictly speaking, it was not even about Tamiko. If not her, it would have been someone else, somewhere else, who would have made him wish for a life where he would not have to choose between lying to himself, to Hikaru, or to the rest of the world. After all, no true relationship could be based on lies, and while a kingdom for two had been more than enough for the better part of their lives, he was no longer at an age to believe that romantic love was all he needed.

"I love you too," he said.

Hikaru sat up with a heavy sigh and leaned forward, and Kaoru helped him pull off his clothes until he wore nothing but a t-shirt and boxers. The younger twin then pulled aside the covers, and once they were both underneath he let Hikaru entwine him in his arms and wrap his legs around him. They lay in silence for a few moments, the younger twin stroking the older one's hair. 

"I -- I don't know where I'd be without you, Kaoru" -- Hikaru finally said, in a voice that implied quite heavily that he did, and that it was somewhere on the ledge of a tall building.

"Well, I'm here for you, Hikaru. Just relax," Kaoru replied, his hand sliding to the small of his brother's back where the muscles were especially tight. "I think you need more sleep. All that other stuff, it can wait. I can talk to mom and see if she can let you go for a couple days… And maybe I can help with the essay -- I've got a relatively light weekend coming up."

Hikaru sighed, folding himself against his brother's chest and laying a palm against it, the better to feel the heartbeat.

"Yeah, I don't know if that'll work," he said brokenly. "I doubt you know anything about the Hong Kong futures markets, and we've got our Moscow boutique opening soon, so mom's mad as a banshee. Some of the administrative stuff that goes on in Russia -- you seriously can't make that shit up…"

Kaoru ran his his fingers through his brother's hair.

"I still think it wouldn't hurt to try." 

In another situation, Kaoru might have given more thought to the irony -- usually, cuddling at his brother's chest like a small, suckling babe was HIS place. And usually his brother was the one who looked at him with soft eyes, and told him all would be well, and drew his fingers through HIS hair. But then again, seeing things turned on their head did not feel wrong either. Rather, it felt like something he had always known but had never been called upon to do -- and Hikaru's hair, where he had not gelled it in place, was soft as a sparrow's undercoat. Indeed, Hikaru showing his sad and put-upon side in a way that didn't involve yelling and throwing things -- the very fact that he had a vulnerable side to show, even though Kaoru had always known, in theory, that he had one -- all that quickly put the younger twin's mind to work wondering what more he could do.

Hikaru was breathing quietly, his eyes fixed on the ceiling in defiance of sleep, and Kaoru reached to the bedside to turn off the lamp. His brother had indeed not been burning the candle at both ends. Over the course of the last few weeks, Kaoru had woken up several times in the middle of the night to find Hikaru awake and plugging away at his laptop. And Yuzuha, too, had been running him ragged, while the social club at school had stepped up its drinking. So all-in-all his brother was running on fumes far more than he was.

"Hikaru." Kaoru pressed his lips against his brother's cheek. The skin had grown cooler, but it still seemed extraordinarily thin, and he could see the strands of blue under its surface. "Come on. It's going to be okay."

He slid his hand down to his brother's waistband, pushed down his boxers, and took hold of a part of him that had been growing hard despite Hikaru's fatigue. The older twin uttered a small moan and tensed his thighs. Kaoru began to stroke, first slowly and firmly, then faster, and adjusted himself so he was kissing Hikaru's neck. Hikaru moaned and turned to him, searching for his lips, and Kaoru let him find them, propping himself up on his elbow so he could do what he was doing even as Hikaru's hands sought desperately under his shirt and fingernails scraped his back. 

Kaoru did his best to squeeze harder toward the top, just the way Hikaru liked it, and it did not take long for the older brother's breaths to grow faster and more ragged. Once he began to arch his lower back as if in pain, Kaoru broke the kiss, pushed aside the covers, and reached to the bedside table so that when Hikaru finished, he could be ready. Once Hikaru did, Kaoru caught it deftly in a tissue, and the older twin collapsed against the pillows like a toy whose spring had run out.

"Feel better?" Kaoru asked with a smile, pulling his brother's pants back up and kissing first his forehead and then his lips. Hikaru tried to pitch up to meet him, but no avail. His entire body had grown flaccid as if he had been hit by an Amazonian poison arrow dart.

"Shhh. Just sleep, Hikaru," said Kaoru, pressing another kiss on his forehead and pulling the covers over them both. He pressed himself against his brother's side, this time wrapping his own limbs around him, and listened to the rickety buzzing of the clock to keep from nodding off in the womblike warmth. Once Hikaru's breathing changed to suggest he was asleep, Kaoru folded his arms and legs out of the way, got out of bed, and walked to the window. 

Outside, the floodlights cast an anemic glow over the courtyard, and a few snowflakes swept past the window and disappeared. Kaoru slid open his phone and dialed a number. 

"Hey." Tamiko's voice still sounded a trifle sodden.

"You okay?" 

"Yeah."

"Look, I'm sorry about today, but I really need to see you."


	7. The Counselor and the Friend

AGE 19, First Year of University

Part 4: The Counselor and the Friend

Having successfully put Hikaru to bed, Kaoru's first destination was Yuzuha's atelier. Even at eleven on a Friday, and even with Hikaru routinely helping out so she could spend more time with her youngest daughter, late-night sessions were still a routine part of his mother's life, and it was certainly not beyond her to make her staff work on Valentine's. After that, Kaoru made his way to Tamiko's. By the looks of the address, it was a rental or a condo in an unassuming neighborhood forty-five minutes from the university. Once there, he dismissed the driver, and paced in front of the house for a good fifteen minutes.

Somehow, he had gotten it into his head that if one person knew and accepted him for who he was, secret identity and all, a thread would be formed between two words and things would not be as pearshaped. As far as acceptance went, Tamiko was definitely his best bet. She was quite the hopeless romantic, and thoroughly devoted to the voiceless and the downtrodden. But so many things could still go wrong, and if they did… He did not want to think what would happen then. Plus, at the end of the day, who knew if she would even believe him? He could imagine it very well - her listening with wide eyes to the story, politely waiting for the end, and then smacking him violently across the face and bursting into tears."First I have what may be the worst day of my life because of you," she would wail, "And then you have the gall to come here and mock me?!" He would have nothing to say to that, because it really was a story only a deranged otaku could come up with.

But if there was one quality he and Hikaru definitely shared, it was a conviction that sometimes it was NOT better to let things settle down. The only thing Hikaru might have done differently was that if Tamiko did not want to talk to him, he would have forced her.

…

It was not until he got to her apartment that Kaoru realized that he should have put more thought into how he presented things. When Tamiko opened the door, she wore an ankle-length nightie made of what looked like fifty layers of tulle, but the expression on her face was far more compelling for being that of a girl questioning if this might perhaps be the night certain items she had bought with a blush and kept in her nightstand would finally be put to good use. And, come to think of it, Kaoru probably looked rather haunted himself.

"Don't worry," he said quickly, almost before she had finished looking him up and down. "I really do just want to talk. I want to tell you… well, everything."

He squinted to see if her eyes were still rimmed from crying, but the hall was dark and so was her foyer. She motioned him in with a nod and a shuffle of feet.

"Of course. Come in." Her voice was still wooden, just as it had been on the phone, but she no longer seemed upset, and when she had opened the door, even despite her trepidation she had smiled a little.

Tamiko's place was even smaller than Haruhi's - the only other commoner apartment he had ever been in, and consisted of a hallway, an appendix of a kitchen, and a bed room perhaps a hundred feet square with tatami mats, low table and futon. Tamiko pushed the futon out of the way and motioned Kaoru to sit as she went into the kitchen to put a kettle on. While she was gone, he watched the wall of windows in the building across the way, which all seemed to be glow different colors. Some were pale green, others more yellow. A few were even orange. It was too far to see inside, but two of the windows had grown dark before Tamiko returned again.

"Look, you were right," Kaoru said once they had settled down at the table, legs folded underneath and the kettle between them. Tamiko had been looking at him a little sadly, her eyes seeming to take up more of her face than normal. "I feel terrible for not being straight with you, and I think you deserve an explanation."

She was silent.

"But first, I really want you to promise that you will try and understand - and that you won't not tell anyone."

He waited as Tamiko pulled at the drawstrings of her nightgown, searching with her eyes for something in the whorls of the table.

"How can I promise something like that if I don't know what it's about?"

Kaoru smiled.

"Do you have paper and a pen?"

"Of course."

The items in question were pulled out of a drawer, and Kaoru set to work. Three minutes later, he had made two paper hats, then scribbled some characters on each of them and slid them over to Tamiko.

"I'd like you to first hear me out as a Room Three counselor" - he pointed to one of the hats - "and if at any moment you feel like you might be ready to make the conversation more personal, you can put on the Friend hat."

Tamiko nodded slowly. She had to admit it was a clever idea. Room Number Three staff were duty-bound just like professional psychologists were. They could not share what they heard on service with outsiders, unless they had reason to believe that someone was planning on hurting themselves or others. And even if they chose to unload on fellow staff if it ever got too much, they were not allowed to mention names, appearances, or identifying details.

"And if not," Kaoru added, "You can just stay a counselor the whole time and not involve Tamiko-the-friend at all - though I certainly hope that you do." He let the tiniest bit of Host slip into his smile.

"Alright." Tamiko looked up and smiled as well, and her face had a cloudless, Mona Lisa-like simplicity. The way it usually did when she put her issues aside for the sake of someone else's. She placed the Counselor hat on her head.

"So what made you come in today?" she asked with a hint of a wider smile as she topped off his tea. "Sorry, we're out of treats right now." Her voice, unlike her manner, sounded a bit forced, like Tamiko staffing Room Three despite an exam looming. Still, it was nothing he could not work with.

"Well, there's something I've never told anyone at Todai," Kaoru began. "Basically - and I know it seems hard to believe, but" - he begged his muscles to help him keep a straight face, for now that it came down to it, he felt ridiculous even saying it. "I'm not who I say I am. At all. You might say I've got a secret identity. Or rather, two identities, because I'm not really sure which one's secret at this point."

He paused, moving to take a sip of tea. He had kept his eyes on her, but before he could even blink she had pulled off the Counselor hat and put on the Friend one.

"Bullshit! I don't believe you!"

…Well, so much for that.

Tamiko folded her arms across her chest and was staring back at him, her eyes two very indignant coals.

"Which is why I brought proof," said Kaoru with a tight smile, trying his best to sound as if there had been no interruption. "Put your other hat back on and I'll show you."

Tamiko obeyed with like a child shamed for throwing a tantrum. Kaoru reached into his backpack, which he had kept by his side, and pulled out a folder.

"In fact, I am not from Hokkaido," he said. "I am from here. And my name is not Hitachi. It's Hitachiin."

He took another swallow of tea, watching to see how she fared in the face of the H-bomb. His mother's name, while not exactly a household one, was plenty familiar to anyone who as much as feigned interest in fashion, and, unlike "Hitachi," it was unique enough to be unmistakeable.

Tamiko's mouth dropped open, but just a little bit. She might have had a mind to speak, but thought better of it. Kaoru opened his folder and pulled out his Ouran yearbook with pictures and names of the graduates. He then taken out a magazine dated several years back, opened to a spread of him and Hikaru in their debut ad campaign, and a third document: before and after photos of him marked up by the plastic surgeon to indicate what exactly would be changed and how. That done, he found took out a contact case, removed his colored lenses, and pushed back his bangs to better demonstrate a half-centimeter of lighter outgrowth.

"As you can see, that's me," he said. "I assumed a new identity after high school."

Tamiko was silent for a little longer than than may have been expected even for a counselor.

"I… see," she said, looking from picture to picture, her expression a bit vacant.

"Now you might think - why is he doing this?" Kaoru continued, suddenly emboldened. Now that THAT hump had been cleared, this was starting to feel almost fun. A part of him even felt cool doing it - like he was a James Bond sort coming out to a pretty female accomplice. "And one answer might seem obvious - I wanted to dissociate myself from my old life. I didn't want people to… assume things about me. Or to recognize me." He nodded slightly at the spread, which had been on many a billboard only two years ago. "But there's another reason, and that's where today comes in."

He reached into his pocket, took out his wallet, and placed his Todai student ID next to the other pieces of evidence.

"I didn't just change my appearance and my name. I actually assumed the identity of a completely different person. A person who existed for only a few days, technically, but still, another person - with different parents, and a different sex. On paper, anyway."

He pointed to two small characters at the bottom of the card - and Tamiko saw, for the first time, that it was the character for "female" that was circled.

This time, her mouth fell open farther than before, and he saw her eyes shoot like lightning to his face, then lower, where they ran aground against a thick turtleneck sweater.

"What… made you do that?" she asked, catching herself barely in the nick of time, her voice far more stoic than could have been expected under the circumstances - and a credit to the hat she wore.

"I did it for love." Kaoru half-shrugged. "We wanted to be together as proper husband and wife, but we couldn't do it legally. Not just because we're both men, but because he's my twin brother. In fact, that's him." He gestured at the magazine foldout, and flipped to the previous page in the yearbook. "Though the part about our relationship - you're just going to have to take my word for it. I don't imagine you want to see a whole lot of super-private text conversations."

Tamiko had given up all pretense of living up to the word on her hat, and was still staring blankly from the papers on the table to Kaoru, who could think of little more to do with his face than channel the remnants of James Bond swagger into a weak, tense smile. For a few moments, it was so silent he thought he could hear the sweep of the ceiling fan in an adjacent apartment.

"So you see now, why you can't tell anyone?" he said. "Though I guess now that you know," he chuckled, "You might find me thoroughly disgusting, in which case you're free to no longer be friends with me. I'd understand, if that's what you wanted."

She nodded, and beneath her smile he thought he could see something breaking. A few more sweeps of the faraway ceiling fan measured out the silence before Tamiko got up, removing her hat once more. She placed it carefully by the side of her cup and walked around the table, where she lowered herself by Kaoru's side and hugged him. She held him to her chest for a very long time, and when she pulled away and looked at his face, her eyes were wet.

"I'm really sorry, Tami-chan."

She shook her head.

"No, don't be sorry. I'M the one who should be sorry."

She looked down at the whorls in the table again, and it seemed like for a minute her eyes were absorbed entirely in following them.

"You - you have a beautiful heart. I can't imagine doing something like that for somebody."

"Yeah, you'd think that," Kaoru laughed, this time a little sadly. "But I'm beginning to think that maybe I didn't do it for him - I did it for me, except…"

Her knee had been touching his, and she had started slightly when she noticed it. She reached over to the other side of the table and put the Friend hat back on her head, topping off the gesture with an apple-cheeked attempt at a smile.

"Except?" she raised her eyebrows, folding her calves under herself.

"Except… I'm not so sure any more."

"Not sure?"

"Well, here's the thing, Tamiko" - it was Kaoru's turn to look down and bite his lip, pretending to take a keen interest in the printed pattern of the table. "I got to thinking, after you told me what you did, I… well, I - thought about you."

"You thought about… me?"

He still wasn't looking at her, but a note in her voice made him queasy again, and he was right back to the study room that morning.

"I did. I thought about what it might be like, for you and if I hadn't said no."

He looked up, and, sure enough, she was the rabbit before a snake again as well. Even her nose was twitching.

"The thing is, I could see it. I thought it would be very nice. And I can't help but think that that must mean something, because I've never SEEN anyone before, not like that. Well, maybe once, briefly, but that was before." He looked down again. "I don't know. I'm worried it means I'm wavering in my resolve."

He searched Tamiko's face for a hint of something - an echo of pain, or a shadow of struggle. 'Be kind,' he whispered to distract himself, 'For everyone you know is fighting a great battle.' But he saw nothing. At best, she was lifeless - almost more so than when she had been struggling to wrap her mind around what he had told her.

"Kaoru," she said at last, taking off her Friend hat and reaching for the one that said Counselor. "Can you tell me exactly what you thought?"

He sat a little farther back on his haunches as she straightened up to face him.

"I thought… Well, about us dating. The things we'd do and see - museums, flowers, ice cream sundaes. That kind of thing. I thought about meeting your parents, and graduating and… getting married. About the life we'd have. House, cars, jobs, kids. You know. The usual stuff."

"And how did that make you feel?"

"I don't know."

How DID it? As the ceiling fan measured out the time a wall away, Kaoru had been so focused on forming the words and imagining just what sorts of things they might have been stirring in Tamiko that he had quite forgotten to start reflecting on what he knew would be her next question - assuming she did not take off her hat. In the building across the way, another window flickered and went dark.

"I guess it felt… nice. Things would be simpler. There wouldn't be anything to hide."

She waited for him to say more, looking at him with her soft Mona Lisa smile and her eyes warm and brown like two cozy cups of tea. She removed her hat again.

"I hope this isn't too presumptuous of me…." She paused to tuck a thread of curls behind her ear. Her hair did not have its usual wave like that of a doll behind glass, but there was something new and defenselessly soft about it. "And this is really hard for me to say. But… I don't really think you thought about ME. You thought about the idea of me, and the story everyone must've written in their heads about us. The cute, cookie-cutter ever-after - you know? Except, I have a feeling you want more than that."

"Oh. How do you figure?"

She smiled and cocked her head. "I know you. Even though you've been pretending to be somebody else. A disguise is still a self-portrait." Kaoru thought he must have looked skeptical, because she sighed. "I can't really explain it, but you're not like everyone else. No matter how much you try to blend in. You're clearly very brave, you've got a goal that you're would go to great lengths for. But it's also as if you have the presence and power of more than one person - if that makes any sense. As if someone who's very far away still walks beside you. When I thought you were Hitachi, I thought it was your parents. But now that I know what I know, it makes even more sense."

Kaoru smiled, and she saw his eyes soften by the yellow light of the room.

"That still doesn't explain why I WANT more, though." He sighed. "Or even if I do… I'm just worried that a part of me doubts that it's worth it."

The tea had grown lukewarm, but she reached for the kettle and emptied the last of it into their cups.

"I think I know what you're saying," she said slowly, focusing on where his clavicles must have been for fear of running into his face.

She let her eyes wander over the photographs, in particular the one of the two beautiful boys, identical except for the direction they parted their hair. They were seated facing in opposite directions, their heads at slightly different levels, and the one she was almost convinced was Kaoru wore a fur-lined vest that showed off his collar bones and a long, bare neck. Although Kaoru had fixed his nose, chin and cheekbones, she hardly needed the surgeon's notes to recognize him. Indeed, she could remember seeing the ad campaign before, and when she had first met him, she could have sworn he reminded her of someone, but she could not place who and had eventually forgotten about it.

She wanted to dislike the boys for what they were, and, more importantly, for what it all meant for her. Especially the one she was almost sure was other one, and had a slightly devilish spark in his eye like the world was his oyster. But she found it hard to do. Something about the positions of their bodies suggested that they knew the other was there - knew it without having to look, even as their fingers almost touched behind their backs. Were she a slightly less luminous person, it might have made her jealous. But as the case was, it only made her sad, and not for herself.

"Your brother… what's his name again?"

"Hikaru."

"Right, Hikaru." 'Bright light' - how fitting. People named Hikaru never had any problems. People named Hikaru were the people everyone wanted to be.

"I think," she said tentatively, "I might know how to figure out what it is you're really having doubts about."

"Oh?"

"Well," she said tentatively, casting her eyes to the side and biting her lip. "What if you were to imagine that Hikaru was out of the picture? Imagine you come home one day, and he's not there. Everyone and everything else is there, and maybe the TV's on as, and you smell dinner being made, but Hikaru is nowhere to be seen, and all his stuff is gone. As if he never existed."

"Okay." Kaoru chuckled at Tamiko's take on what coming home every day felt like. "You're going to have to give me more context, though. Where has he gone? Is he even alive. Or did he just randomly take off one day?"

She pondered for a moment.

"No, it's nothing like that. I mean, this might be hard to imagine, but… let's pretend he's alive, but he's just gone somewhere far away and he's never coming back, and you can never find him or be in touch with him. No… better yet - let's say you found out that Hikaru was just a figment of your imagination, or an alien who had to go back to his home planet…"

"Geez, Tamiko, this is one complicated thought experiment..."

She sighed.

"Yeah… I guess. But I what I mean is, let's say you could somehow avoid all the hard feelings and nastiness that comes with a breakup. Or… let's say you experience it all, but you get through it quickly. Like if someone waved a magic wand and it was all condensed into five of the worst minutes in your life, but once it was over it was over. What would happen then?"

"I… don't know. I literally don't know what I'd do in such a situation."

"But would you feel relieved?"

"No."

"How would you feel?"

Kaoru gave it a few moments' thought. Try as he might, he still could not imagine it. Not Hikaru as an alien being, or imaginary, or simply gone. No matter how many magicians were to come and help him, it was impossible. It was like pressing a key on a piano and finding it made no sound. Like a silent spring, or a forest without birds. Or a great flood.

"Empty," he said. "I would feel empty."

Tamiko raised the cup to her lips and took a sip, but the tea was all gone.

"Then I don't think you should throw it all away because of day-to-day difficulties." She paused, hesitated, and put the cup down, almost apologetically. "Honestly, if that's the case, I feel like it's not that you don't love him. It's just that you feel… I don't know, is fragmented the right word? And that makes sense. Anyone would, in your shoes."

Kaoru looked back at her in wonder. It was definitely true what they said. In the mouths of babes… And yet, her birthday was March of the previous year, which technically made her more than a year older than him, despite being a foot shorter.

"How did you get so perceptive, Tamiko-senpai?" He allowed himself a laugh. "I've been beating around the bush for months, and you just come out and say it."

Tamiko gave a self-satisfied chuckle that showed off her cheeks and rose, taking up the kettle.

"Tell me, Kaoru-kohai, what do you really feel like?" She paused on the doorstep leading to the hall. "It seems at home you're one thing, at school you're another, and on paper you're well, a third. But nowhere do you really belong to yourself. And once again, that makes sense, because - you know the old saying about how everyone's got three faces? There's the face you show to the world, the face you show to those closest to you - for you, that would be at home to Hikaru - and the face you only show to yourself. Do you have a third face? What's it look like?" She smiled over her shoulder, plump and pigeon-like in her nightgown. "Give it a think, I'll be right back."

…

But before Tamiko had come back with the kettle refilled, Kaoru's phone rang. It was Yuzuha.

"Look, I don't know where you are - and I don't want to know" - she barked in lieu of greeting – "The two of you can hash that out between yourselves. But you'd better get home right now. Fly, sprout wings, I don't care. Just get here."

When Tamiko returned, Kaoru was gathering his things into his backpack.

"I'm sorry," he said sheepishly, glancing at the phone he had left the table. "I've gotta go, Tami-chan. I've got a… family thing."

"Oh, okay."

She put down the kettle and folded her hands, her cheeks bright and pink as raspberries. They exchanged a knowing glance as he packed away the last of the evidence, and she sat down opposite, pulling the stack of unused paper and the pen toward her. She was scribbling something when he looked up, and, her work done, she slid a folded piece of paper across the table.

"Here, this is for you," she said.

He opened the sheet and smiled.

"Prescription," it read. "For Kaoru Hitachi(in). One life that is yours. - Dr. T. Inoue."

[I apologize to anyone who minds that Hikaru is not in this chapter except as a clothing ad. Don't worry, he'll be back. :)]


	8. Guilty

When Hikaru had slipped into sleep, it did not really feel like it. Rather, when he finished with Kaoru's help and the latter wrapped his arms around him, nuzzling into the angle between his neck and jaw, his body began to feel like it was sinking into downy pillows. And when his breath slowed, Kaoru shifted atop him and started to kiss him, his hand on his cheek, and his thumb just brushing his chin in a way that made the rawness in his chest turn into a sweet, tugging pain. It was the same way he had held Kaoru's chin so many times - and yet he had no notion of the gesture's power. If his body did not already feel as heavy as could be, it would have made him whimper, "take me... I'm all yours. Till the end of the world."

The kisses were very tender, his brother's tongue barely probing inside. His only goal seemed to be to leave a bit of himself on Hikaru's mouth, and in truth, no more was needed. It already felt like Kaoru was all around him - as if he was no longer arms and legs and lips and chest, but a cloud that enveloped and shielded him from the world.

Both in the public eye and out of it, Hikaru had always been the protective father figure. But at the same time, no one made him feel more emotionally safe than Kaoru. His brother was the best listener, and, small though he was, he had the unique ability to create an aura akin to a large, overstuffed arm-chair. And yet, Kaoru himself had never wanted to reveal all of himself - in any way. At first, it had driven Hikaru distracted, and he wanted to press Kaoru against a wall and extort whatever he was hiding by any means necessary. But now it only made him sad, as if he had failed in the one thing that gave his life meaning. It wasn't even the fact that Kaoru did not want to share all of his body. That alone he would have been able to handle. But more than that, day in and day out Hikaru lived in fear that he had fucked up his chance to do for his brother what Kaoru had done for him. Because far more than being clever, good-looking, or good in bed, the most important thing in a relationship - he now realized - was to establish a place of emotional safety for the other person. If you messed that up, nothing else mattered. And yet, being young, with a head more full of hormones than brain, he had forced his brother to fight against borderline rape and emotional blackmail almost nightly, thinking all was fair in love and war. And while he did not let on, when he finally understood he was the reason Kaoru had been hurting himself, it broke him irreversibly.

Still, even if his choice had not fallen on his brother, he was still the sort of man who loved ardently, and loved once in a lifetime. If he had lived in another century, he would have either gotten killed in a duel by age 20, or plunged half a continent into war so he could lay the world at his lover's feet.

But as the case was, he had nothing left to do but vow to spend the rest of his life making it up to him, even if he never saw a thing in return. And so he almost never touched Kaoru first any more, and let him take the lead between the sheets. But still, a man could dream. And so he did, and once the lead of fatigue began to fall away, he let his hand travel up his brother's back, strong yet slender, then into his hair, soft and fine and getting longer, and then back down again as he gently pushed on his chest gently and lay him down, switching positions. In dreams, there was no pain and no fear, and no apprehension of seeing either in Kaoru's face. In dreams, Kaoru welcomed him into a tight embrace as the older twin came to lay on top of him, and when he reached down to spread his legs he drew soothing circles on Hikaru's chest with his palm, his skin smelling of cinnamon. And in dreams, Hikaru flesh would ender Kaoru's gently, and Kaoru would shift his hips up to meet him, and he would feel a small sigh on his lips as Kaoru's fingers pressed into his back.

"HIKARU HITACHIIN!" A gavel fell with the clatter of a thousand bricks. "For raping your brother, I hereby sentence you to ten years without parole… And if you don't mind me saying," the judge added in a lower, though still a grave tone, "That's incest AND sodomy AND rape. You should to be ashamed of yourself."

Hikaru woke with a violent surge of blood to his head. The room was silent, except for the whirr and trickle of seconds on the old clock. His fists were balled into the sheets, and his knees and feet were digging into the mattress, but all he had been having sex with was a bed. He scrambled up and looked wildly around. Kaoru was nowhere to be seen. Hikaru's chest began to ride up and down, and he realized - a pulse of fear ripping through him - that he could not have made it collapse if he tried.

Okay, calm down. Kaoru's probably just gone to the bathroom. He'll be back. Hikaru threw the sheets over his legs and pulled his knees up to his chin. He tried to wait. But the cutting feeling in his chest only grew worse and crept to his shoulders and throat, and before long each inflow of air felt like swallowing a dozen knives. The dunes of shadow around him grew darker, and the clock sputtered and whirred as it slowly dawned on him that Kaoru was NOT in the bathroom - in fact, there was no crack of light under the door, and no sounds from behind it. Just the violent knell of his heart echoing into the corners and slamming him in the temples with every stroke.

Hikaru threw aside the covers and got up, but the first time he tried his legs nearly gave way under him. He steadied himself against the foot of the bed. Thank goodness - his head felt light, so maybe it would not be so hard to support himself. His chest and lungs still seemed to have a mind of their own, and seemed like they were about to burst. It took all he had just to master his breath and his thoughts together with it.

Kaoru… Kaoru… Where are you, Kaoru? You wouldn't leave me - not like this. Even if you're sneaky sometimes and you hide things. You wouldn't. I know you wouldn't. People do, but not my Kaoru…

Or would he?

Kaoru flashed before his eyes, ever the delicate, sweet bishounen who turned both male and female heads wherever he went even with his new, more generic coloring - yet remained comically unaware of the fact. Kaoru was laughing in the middle of a sun-lit hallway, his head half-turned to glance at someone behind him, calling out for him to catch up.

No. No. You asshat. How could you even think such a thing - ?! Kaoru's definitely around here somewhere. Maybe he'd gone to have a midnight snack…

Wait. A midnight snack?! You mean, like the midnight snacks that used to devolve into worship at the porcelain throne, back when - ?!

Hikaru had almost sunk back on the bed, but was up like a shot, and out of the room in half a minute less than no time. Hang the fact that he was wearing nothing but boxers and a T-shirt. Before twenty minutes were up, he had busted down every bathroom door in the house - minus those in the servants' rooms. He had also thrown on the lights in the kitchen and scoured every corner of the pantry - to say nothing of the rest of the house when he found the kitchen deserted except for a maid and a butler kissing behind one of the counters.

"You… you two are NOT COMPATIBLE" - he spat after a few seconds of stabbing the air with his finger in their general direction. And before the dumbfounded duo could mutter their apologies, he was off.

He even poked his head into little Ageha's room, since Kaoru had a habit of coaxing her back to sleep if he was passing by and she had had a nightmare. But there was no Kaoru there, either - just a sleeping Aggie holding her rabbit in a death-grip and sucking her thumb. And Kaoru was not in Shar's room, either, though Hikaru did succeed in getting his mother's assistant to mutter something in her sleep - quite an accomplishment judging by the squadron of alcohol-laced cold medicine on her bedside table.

Hikaru shut the door and felt pins and needles coursing up his legs and arms. There was nowhere else to look, was there? Suddenly, he was back in the bed, a condemned man, shivering and stripped - a pulling void all around him. His whole body felt like the skin had been ripped off, and with every breath more and more of the atoms in the air turned to shards. Everything was severed, gone. Everything screamed, the panic rising around him like water. He saw walls, but could not remember where he was, or how he had gotten there. The one drive that remained was to flee, and his heart and lungs were quickly gathering revolutions. But he could not. One false step, and he would die, crushed by the mad force of gravity and the emptiness that had opened up around him.

Yes, he was going to die - he realized. There were no two ways about it. Or he would go crazy. His mind would be ripped from his body, nerve by nerve. Whichever came first. And, simpering and more terrified though he was - far more than ever in his life - as far as his silly heart and lungs were concerned, the rest of him felt so, impossibly heavy…

The soft-haired bishounen flashed before his eyes again, his head and torso half-turned, laughing in the sun-lit hallway. A dull pain nearly split his ribcage down the middle, and he doubled over. The image faded.

Hikaru collapsed against the wall, his strength gone.

…

Yuzuha was making her way down the hallway on tiptoes, her oversized purse slung over her shoulder. As always, she was set on checking on Ageha before retiring for a few hours' rest. The lights in the hallway were low - night lights just strong enough to guide one's way - so she did not see the shape huddled in a heap, holding on to the wall with splayed fingers like an anemic version of Spiderman, until she was a few feet away.

She squinted at the gray outline, and it looked like the hair was on the lighter side.

"Hikaru?"

The shape did not reply, but she heard it breathing, fast and shallow, and saw the chest twitch.

"Hikaru, what are you doing here?" She reached for the nearest light switch, and turned the hallway lights up a few degrees. Hikaru did not look like was about to move or get up, so she squatted beside him and put down her bag.

"What's going on, Hikaru?" she asked, as sternly is she could. She was still a little less than inclined to trust her older son, her kneejerk response being to screen any odd behavior for malingering or a hidden agenda. But in any case, direct was almost always better than touchy-feely.

"K - Kaoru."

"Kaoru? What about Kaoru?"

Hikaru's face was buried in the crook of his elbow, and he still hung on to the wall for dear life, fingernails digging into the paper. His breaths had turned to wheezes and then to rasps, and then it began to sound like he was gagging as if his throat was liquefying.

"I - can't - find him," he finally strained. "I woke up - and he wasn't there. He's not - anywhere."

"He's not anywhere? Have you tried calling him?"

Yuzuha was in the loop - she had always known that her sons shared a bed long past an age when sibling cosleeping was the norm**, but at first she had merely chalked it up to teenage experimentation. And when the twins advanced their scheme, she had been taken aback - though at least half of her bewilderment was due to the fact that she did not expect that level of maturity. Still, when it came to morality, Yuzuha was the ultimate consequentialist, and believed that the key to getting things done was a happy home life, no matter what sort of family one chose to have. And being in an "understanding" with her otherwise beloved husband, she certainly could not stand to call the kettle black. So in the end, she had been the one to help them with their plan, and after a few months she had even come to accept it. So when she heard that Hikaru could not find Kaoru on Valentine's night of all nights, she was at a loss as to what to think, though not in the way one might have expected.

(**cosleeping between non-spouse family members in Japan - i.e. siblings and parents and children - is not uncommon, and is seen as a sign of closeness but not necessarily sexual intimacy. Originally, however, the practice was normalized due to space constrains - a problem Hikaru and Kaoru definitely don't have.)

"N - no," Hikaru whimpered.

"Well, Geez-Louise, why not? I'd think that would be the first order of business."

"B - because he might not pick up…"

Yuzuha paused, heading off a half-peeved chuckle.

"Well, then you call him again until he does pick up."

Hikaru did not reply, burrowing his face deeper into his folded arms, and Yuzuha saw his shoulders shake under his T-shirt.

"Do you want ME to call him?" She pulled her bag toward her and fished out her phone. Kaoru picked up after the second ring, and Yuzuha covered the mouthpiece.

"See, he picked up," she threw emphatically at Hikaru, her air that of a mother none-too-happy to be woken for closet-dwelling monster patrol.

"Kaoru" - she took her hand off the mouthpiece - "Look, I don't know where you are, and I don't want to know," she barked into the phone. "The two of you can hash that out between yourselves. But you'd better get home right now. Fly, sprout wings, I don't care. Just get here."

"What's going on?" Kaoru asked - though something in his voice gave the inkling that he knew.

"I don't know. Your brother is having some sort of nervous breakdown."

"Oh, no - what's he doing?"

"Hyperventilating, not making much sense. I found him sitting on the floor in the hall - I don't know how long he's been there. He says he woke up and couldn't find you."

"Ok, I'm on my way."

"When can you be here?"

"Twenty minutes? Fifteen if Tanaguchi speeds."

"Alright," Yuzuha allowed herself a small, half-audible sigh. "Oh, and Kaoru?"

"Yes?"

"Is... there anything I should do?"

"Oh…" Kaoru seemed to ponder for a split second. "Just… stay with him until I get there. You can try to bring him some of the stuff he likes - like that really old Totoro plush, and there's a playlist on his computer called 'happYness' - with a Y. And maybe some Tako chips**. We have a stash hidden in the purple pouf by the table with the elephant vase. The top just comes off."

(**chips shaped and flavored like octopus)

Yuzuha nodded and clicked off. Without noticing, she had wrapped the tassels of her phone so tightly around her fingers they were now sore. She glanced a few times between its cover and her son's huddled shape. He was still facing away from her, but had raised his eyes and was staring at the wall. His breath still echoed with a wheeze, and he was shaking all over.

"Hikaru," she began, hesitatingly. "Kaoru's okay. He says he'll be here soon."

A spasm seized Hikaru's shoulders.

"What else can I do to help?"

Once again, Hikaru did not answer. Only his airways and diaphragm did - with a hollow choke.

Yuzuha sighed, and lowered herself onto her knees - until then, she had been perched uncomfortably on the balls of her feet. And then she did something she had not done in years. She hugged her son.

…

Kaoru came flying down the hall in seventeen minutes and forty seconds flat, and slid into home next to Hikaru and Yuzuha, seizing his brother by the hands.

"Hikaru! I'm so, so, so, so sorry…"

"Al-right then," said Yuzuha, pressing her lips and letting go of Hikaru as she got up and brushed invisible dust from her knees. For the last fifteen-odd minutes, she had indeed held Hikaru almost continuously, almost as tightly as he hugged his Totoro plush, and had even come to cradle his head as she tried to get him to breathe out. But the spell had most definitely broken.

"Hikaru… Oh, Hikaru…" Kaoru ignored his mother, and just as Hikaru's face began to break so hard it looked like it would split down the middle, he wrapped his arms around his older brother so tightly it could not help but slow the latter's breathing. Hikaru looked so small and sad, like a foal with a broken back. It make Kaoru want to… Well, no, he did not want to think about what it made him want to do, so he squeezed Hikaru all the tighter.

"Kaoru" - Yuzuha's voice broke the silence from above. "Is he going to be alright? Should we do anything else?"

Hikaru's wheezing was starting to slow, and his muscles were no longer trembling. Instead, his body had turned to slush, and melted summarily over Kaoru's chest.

"Hikaru?" Kaoru tried to catch his eyes, but his brother's head fell forward, and he placed a hand under his chest to support him. "I don't think he had a full-on nervous breakdown. I think he'll be fine - but you might have to find someone to fill his shoes for a couple of days. And we might need some valerian root, too."

Yuzuha appraised Hikaru, who had gone limp against Kaoru's torso and buried his face in his button-down, whimpering like a child.

"One day." She said drily. "Do whatever you need to do to get him back on his feet. I don't want him collapsing on me."

She began to walk away, when Kaoru's voice arrested her mid-step.

"You could stand to be a little kinder, mom."

She paused just shy of a turn in the hall.

"He's not a bad kid," Kaoru said. "He works really hard. You could let him know that once in a while." Kaoru was hugging his brother, and looked far more the tender Madonna than she ever had, his features as delicate in the mossy light as the outline of his hand on his brother's temple.

Yuzuha looked at them both and blinked her eyes.

"Oh, I know," she said, pressing a finger to her chin. "But keep in mind, there are many factors at play here." The lamps were set barely above twilight, but Kaoru saw her eyebrows move a good distance upwards.

"Alright, three days then," he said, trying to infuse his voice with just enough self-important opacity to mirror hers. "Clearly, we need more than one day to work through ALL the contributing factors."

"Hm. And why should I give YOU three days?"

"Well, you always go easy on me, and I'm the one who's asking."

"That's because you already make things harder for yourself than they need to be." She gave a low laugh. "There's nothing left for me to do - unless you want to take his place."

"I would, if it came to that."

He stroked his brother's hair as he watched his mother's shape melt into the hall.

…

"Hikaru, I'm so sorry. I knew you were in a bad place - I shouldn't have left you. There was an issue with a friend from school, but still, I should have been here."

They were back in their room, and Hikaru had not let go of Kaoru once as they made their way there, the older twin draped clumsily over the younger's shoulders. Once they were back in bed, Hikaru put his head in Kaoru's lap, and the latter was stroking it. A half-empty water glass and a brown bottle of valerian extract stood on the bedside table, and Hikaru had pulled his knees up to his chest, cradling the Totoro and pressing his chin between its ears. His ribcage still shook, and it seemed like every inch of his skin had been scalded. Weak though he seemed, he shivered and recoiled a bit every time Kaoru touched him, even though the younger twin had fetched a second blanket.

"Am I gonna die, Kaoru?" he whispered.

"Huh?" Kaoru's hand paused over the hair, reddish-gold in the cat-eye yellow of lamp light. Hikaru's face was hidden against the Totoro.

"I felt like I was going to die."

If before Kaoru had not known what kept his gut from turning inside out with guilt and remorse, at that moment it ceased to matter - the defense failed him irrevocably.

"No, you're not going to die." Kaoru heard his own voice from far away. His hand continued its progress. "I think you had a panic attack. That means your nervous system bailed and started sending fight or flight signals even though you weren't in any danger."

"Will it come back?"

"I don't think so. It only tends to come back if you have a condition, so I don't see a reason why it should."

"But what if it does? What if I have a condition?"

"Well, if that's the case, we'll know what to expect and we'll be ready. And I will never be very far from now on, alright?"

Hikaru fell silent, and for a few minutes Kaoru heard nothing but the click of the clock gears and the soft whistle of air.

"What if I keep having them?"

"Then we'll take you to a real doctor - not just me," Kaoru replied with a smile. "And I will go with you if you want."

"And what'll they do?"

"It depends. They might give you pills to take. And you might have to go in and talk to someone once a week. Sort of like at Hazeltown."

"W-will I have to go to a hospital like Hazeltown? Are they going to lock me up?"

"No, they really shouldn't. You're over 18, so you can only be committed unless you're set on hurting yourself or others. Or if you REALLY can't take care of yourself. But you have to be pretty far gone - you have to be wandering around Rippongi naked, pulling trees out of flower beds or something."

Hikaru turned and buried his face in Kaoru's lap, and his hand tightened over his brother's.


	9. Duty

When Hikaru woke up that morning, the sun was shining, and Kaoru was sitting on the edge of the bed with a book on his lap. He put it aside when he saw his brother stirring.

"Hey. How are you feeling?" Kaoru slid across the bed toward Hikaru and squeezed his hand.

Though sleep had helped, Hikaru was still feeling more than a bit battered, and Kaoru's hand on his was the only thing that grounded the remnants of malignant electricity that still prickled through his spine and fingertips.

He reached out and wrapped his arms around Kaoru by way of answer.

"I'm sorry," whispered Kaoru, pressing his lips to his brother's forehead. "I haven't been taking care of you like I should have."

Hikaru drew a ragged breath, taking a moment to savor the feeling of Kaoru's chest, so turgid against his, as he buried his face in the crook of his shoulder.

"Don't be silly, Kaoru," he said with a hollow chuckle. Already, it was getting hard to talk, and his throat seizing up."I'm the one who should be taking care of you - treating you like you're made of glass, showering you with gifts, carrying you over puddles and... shit..."

Kaoru chuckled mildly. "What am I, a mistress or some decorative housewife? It goes both ways - we take care of each other."

"But you've given up so much more."

"I haven't given up anything. I have everything I want." The younger twin put his hand on his brother's back and rubbed it. "Besides, mom's right. If I'm not going to be helping you with the company, it is my duty to support you in other ways."

"Duty?" The older twin's voice fell, wounded.

"No, that's not what I meant" - Hikaru had pulled his face away and Kaoru caught his chin just in the nick of time. "What I meant was, there's the family - and the duty - that you're born into. And then there's the family and duty that you choose. For me, you're both." He drew his brother's face gently to his. "I love you, and I want to be a good husband for you. If you'll still have me, of course."

Hikaru sighed. The feeling of his brother's fingers on his chin made him want to forget everything and cry against his chest until everything disappeared. But he did not even have the wherewithal to do that.

"I LIKE taking care of you, Hikaru," Kaoru added emphatically. "It makes me happy. And nothing makes me more sad than when I fall short."

"Then I guess you need very little for happiness."

…

The rest of the weekend passed uneventfully, and Kaoru kept as busy as he could so as not to go running to the bathroom to cough up the contents of his stomach every time he felt a stirring of guilt. He insisted on personally waiting on Hikaru hand and foot, and fed him even when the latter wanted to do nothing but lie with his knees to his chest and his arms around the Totoro. ("Dr. Kaoru prescribes food, fluids, and much fraternal cuddling," he had declared.) He also got in touch with Kyouya, who had taken the class for which Hikaru had a paper due the previous year, and after much groveling got him to put together a detailed outline complete with quotes, facts, and figures. Then, since Kyouya drew the line at full-on plagiarism, Kaoru cobbled it all together as best he could into something he hoped would earn a passing grade and submitted it electronically. And on top of that, he even got to study for his quiz and convinced Yuzuha - with a series of scholarly articles that were over her head - that three days or more really was a better plan, lest Hikaru come back to work prematurely, have a relapse, and embarrass her in front of the clients.

Hikaru, for his part, remained parked in their king-sized bed surrounded by pillows, and hardly got up for two days. He did not seem to want to talk, preferring to watch hours upon hours of his favorite tear-jerker dramas instead. And Kaoru did not push him. After all, Hikaru did not seem angry - which was good news, because with Hikaru what you saw was what you got most days. Nor did he seem indifferent, for every time Kaoru came over he would stretch his arms, and tent his eyebrows, and pull him into a tight hug when he lay down beside him. And when it came to intimacy, the two nights they spent together were among the fervent they had had in a while, even though Hikaru hardly spoke and only kissed Kaoru until he could hardly catch a breath. Of course, the older twin did look by turns anxious and despondent when Kaoru left the room for too long, but that was to be expected - and by the time Monday rolled around, Hikaru himself had begged Kaoru not to miss class on his account. So away Kaoru went, with the pit of his stomach as heavy as his heart, having decided to take the car to save time, and having resolved to ask Tamiko to look after the study group and the peer counseling by herself for a few days.

Four hours later, class having passed in a blur, Kaoru sat once again in the back of the limo, trying to review on the go so he would have more time at home for Hikaru. The road wound through a ravine full of trees - standing nude and frozen in sleep. Ordinarily, the sight might have been an oddity in a city where one could scarcely turn a cat. But Shirokanedai, having once been the site of a royal estate, was known for its wide open spaces, and through the branches Kaoru could see the back porches and the roofs of many a villa perched atop the hills. The snow from two days ago had melted without a trace, and the ground lay frozen and hard, with only a threadbare carpet of last year's leaves to shield it from the cold.

Kaoru was about to turn back to his notes when he caught sight of a figure some distance down the road.

It looked like a jogger, but something was off. Given that the ground was still frozen, a jogger would have worn a track suit, or at least long pants and headgear of some sort. But this one seemed to be wearing hardly more than a T-shirt. Kaoru squinted, and nearly doubled over right then and there.

His fingers shaking, he pressed the button to lower the partition between him and the driver, and asked to catch up with the figure up ahead. The driver nodded, and before a minute was up, they had pulled even with the jogger and Kaoru rolled down his window.

"Hikaru, where are you going?" Kaoru asked in his sweetest tone. He fixed his eyed on his brother's profile, and hoped that the Herculean effort it took to keep his voice steady would be less than apparent.

At first, Hikaru seemed too far gone - or far too determined not to notice the car that had pulled up beside him. But when he heard Kaoru's voice he stopped short, and looked pointedly at the ground in front of him, his face screwed into a knot. His eyes and nose were running like a child's, and the sides of his mouth were twitching. Kaoru's inkling had been correct - he really was wearing hardly more than a T-shirt. Indeed, he had only pulled on a pair of gym shoes - no socks, even - and his pants, to Kaoru's horror, were just that in the British sense: the same boxers he had gone to bed in, and Kaoru could only wonder how he could have gone so long without attracting attention. It looked like he had been out for quite some time, and it hurt to look at him - his cheeks - indeed, every inch of his exposed skin - burned brighter than a bonfire. His chest was heaving, his breath smoked, and, having stopped, he had begun to shake like a leaf and seemed unable to answer not because he did not want to, but because spasm after spasm kept his jaw from moving in any constructive way.

"Okay, seriously, Hikaru, what the HELL? -"

Kaoru threw open the door and got out, taking hold of his brother squarely by the shoulders. But the latter only looked down, and it seemed like he would have looked defiant if the circumstances were any different from what they were.

"Hikaru, it's cold out," Kaoru said, doing what he could to keep his tone observational. "You shouldn't be out dressed like this. Let's go home."

"I'm - s-s-s… ry - K-k-k - ru..." Hikaru was still avoiding eye contact, his lips were starting to turn blue, and he looked about as pitiful as if he were ready to wet his pants.

"Come on." Having ascertained that Hikaru was not about to do anything rash - indeed, that as soon as he had stopped his strength had quite left him - Kaoru steadied his nerves and gathered his brother around the waist, bodily packing him into the car as he tried not to think about just how much his body felt like an ice block.

The remainder of the drive was at best five minutes, but to Kaoru it felt like a lifetime. To keep himself together, he wrapped his arms around Hikaru, rubbed his back and blew hot breaths onto his neck, having despaired of the heater. And the moment the car stopped, Kaoru leaped out again as if scalded, dragging Hikaru behind him, and did not stop until he was back in their bedroom. Once there, he plopped his nearly fainting brother onto the bed, pulled the covers violently off and wrapped them around him. That done, he rang the maid to bring as much tea as she could, and to draw a bath pronto. He then seized Hikaru's hands between his, and lowered himself down onto his knees in front of him, kissing his stiffened fingers and lips. Indeed, Kaoru did not let himself breathe easily until the tea stood steaming on a rolling table before them, Hikaru was wrapped in an electric blanket on top of the other three, and his pulse had gone from fluttering to stronger. Kaoru poured Hikaru a cup and placed it in his hands, and the latter let it sit there for a while, seemingly pondering whether it was better to warm his outsides or his insides.

"Okay, Hikaru," Kaoru said, once he saw a glimmer of recognition return to his brother's eyes. "I'm going to have to ask - what is going on?"

He pulled an a armchair opposite the bed and sat down, leaning forward. The steam from Hikaru's teacup snaked upward, but the older twin did not move. Just wait, Kaoru told himself. Just calm down. He'll talk. It's okay.

Though, of course, he could not be sure that Hikaru WOULD talk. If the last half hour had taught him anything, it was, that you could not count on knowing anything about anybody. In recent years, Kaoru had come to realize that Hikaru was very predictable in his unpredictability - namely, that he had a downright handicap in keeping things to himself. Therefore, over the weekend Kaoru had assumed that while his brother's condition might still have been fragile, there was nothing to suggest that he wasn't on the way to recovery - or that things could end up this pear-shaped. But now he caught himself wondering whether something had altered the very fiber of Hikaru's mind in the space of the few hours that past Friday - or whether he, Kaoru, had never looked closely enough at his twin after all.

"Hikaru, come on." Kaoru did his best to erase all signs of pleading from his voice, and reached out to cup his brother's hands so they both held the tea. "I'm your Kaoru. You can tell me."

The warmth seeped through Hikaru's hands and into Kaoru's, and after what felt like another eternity the older twin looked up. The sun outside the window had gone, and his eyes were a chartreuse tinged with grey.

"I'm sorry, Kaoru."

"There's nothing to be sorry about. Just talk to me."

"I'm a bad person."

"No, NO, you're not - what makes you say that?" Kaoru's response came a bit too quickly, and he checked his tongue, channeling his frustration into squeezing his brother's hands. Part of him had expected something like this.

"Hikaru," he said slowly, infusing his voice with a new firmness. "WHAT. Happened. On Friday?"

"N-nothing happened. I… I just had a bad dream."

Kaoru let go the breath he had been holding and nodded. He cast a furtive look at Hikaru's face, but the older twin looked spent from the admission, so Kaoru pulled his hair closer and helped Hikaru raise the cup to his lips. The older Hitachiin took a swallow and drew a ragged sigh.

"What was the dream?"

Hikaru sighed again. Kaoru let go of his hands and adjusted the blankets closer around him, looping the wire of the electric blanket out of the way.

"It's not important," Hikaru replied wanly. "W-well, the details aren't, anyway." He paused, furrowing his brow. "I guess… I was making love to you. And then - then something happened that made me realize how much I'd hurt you over the years."

"Hurt me, Hikaru?"

"I kept trying to force you to do stuff you didn't want to do. I thought that's what love meant - that you had to do certain things, and that not-wanting was just part of the fun. I thought that if we lived in a kingdom for two, there were no boundaries between and that made it okay. But I was just an idiot who watched too much hentai." - And please, please, please don't say 'it's okay,' - he pleaded silently.

Kaoru took a deep breath and lowered himself back into his chair. Having spat out what had been brewing, the older twin was staring down again into the murky depths of the cup, and Kaoru placed his hands back around his. He caught himself thinking that he might have had to force back a laugh if an all-too-familiar feeling of anxiety had not come dangerously close to seizing up his innards.

"We were young, Hikaru. We both had our issues."

"That's no excuse." Hikaru blinked. The room had grown darker, and it looked like a gale was brewing outside. "I was terrible. I mean… All those so-called punishment games? All the times I laughed at you and told you to keep crying because it only turned me on more? The way I told you you looked pretty with my splooge all over your face?"

Hikaru's voice had been rising steadily and then broke, suddenly and precipitously. He pulled one of his hands away and covered his eyes.

"Hikaru…" In all truth, Kaoru had hoped they would never have to go back to that place - or rather, that he would not have to revisit being on the floor, in the bed, or in the Host Club dressing room, hyperventilating and pleading with Hikaru that he would do anything for him, just as long as he didn't take away his first time. Little did Hikaru know back then, but Kaoru had been convinced that what would make him fall in love even more irreversibly was just another thing his brother wanted to cross off his master hedonist's list. More than that, he was still almost sure that certain things were better left buried. Even years later, it made him so feel cold and helpless he could cry, and that was why he tried not to remember it, preferring instead to pause every once in a while to pinch himself at the thought of how impossibly lucky was. He had been to end up with the person he loved, and that person had turned out not to be as bad as he had feared, and what he had thought was a thoughtless teenage zeal had blossomed into a commitment sure to make any pair of star-crossed lovers smile**. To that day, it still gave him chills, as if he were a car crash victim who had pushed a two-ton hunk of metal off himself and lived to tell the tale.

(**In Japan, it is thought that when two star-crossed lovers commit double suicide they're reincarnated as twins. Here, Kaoru is happy that he and Hikaru are giving the lovers they were in a previous life the happy ending they deserved.)

"N-no wonder you started hurting yourself." Hikaru sighed. "I just can't believe you never told anyone."

"Who would I tell, Hikaru?" Kaoru cracked an unwilling smile. "Mom?"

Hikaru looked up from the cup, and Kaoru was relieved to see that he, too, suddenly looked a little less despondent.

"Well, ok, that's a fair point." He sniffed a chuckle. "But I don't know. There must have been someone. Like Dad, maybe. Or our friends. Or some teacher at school. Anybody."

Kaoru ran his thumb up and down his brother's.

"It's not an easy thing to talk about. For one thing, who's to say they would've even believed me? They might have said it was my own fault - that I must have done something to provoke it, or that if I truly hadn't wanted it, I should've just punched your head in. I mean" - he chuckled - "Because I'm obviously SO capable of doing that."

He hid another twinge of heavy cold in his stomach behind a smirk. Indeed, Honey HAD once asked him if everything was okay, having likely overheard some of the less-than-consensual shananigans in the Host Club changing room. But of course, of course Kaoru had been alright THEN, and even if he wasn't, what business had it been of Honey's? Indeed, it was not until medical school that he learned that the average abuse victim needed to be asked seven times before they finally spoke up.

"Yeah, I don't know," said Hikaru. "Why DIDN'T you punch my head in?"

Kaoru shrugged. "I don't know. Because I was in love? I obviously wouldn't advocate staying in that kind of relationship NOW, and if it makes you feel any better - if I were to meet the five-years-ago-me I would probably have done everything I could to get my hands on that no-good brother of his and get him into trouble." He smiled. "But I think we've been very lucky."

Hikaru looked down at his teacup again, and Kaoru noticed that the steam had stopped swirling. Outside, the sky had turned so dark it might have been night time, though the clock on the mantelpiece had only just struck two.

"Look, I'm not going to lie," Kaoru said. "The way things were is not really something I like to remember. But I think there's a reason we made it through all of that in one piece." He reached for Hikaru's chin and ran the back of his knuckle up his jaw. "And you don't need to beat yourself up. You should be happy - you're not that guy anymore, and you've doing a lot better."

A momentary blush covered Hikaru's cheeks and he pulled back, dropping his eyes to his lap.

"I just want to be worthy of you, Kaoru. You know?"

"I think you're plenty worthy of me."

"No. I'm worthless."

Kaoru withdrew his hand with a smile. "How do you figure?"

"Everything I do, it's all for you. The company, school, the club to build those high-powered connections or whatever - everything. I want to be like mom. No, better than mom. So you would not have to be ashamed of me, and so I could give you everything I can."

"Oh, come on, Hikaru." Kaoru let his smile drift a little wider, kicking back in the chair. "I'm not THAT high-maintenance."

"No, Kaoru, you don't understand. I didn't want to be the slacker brother who gets everything just because he's older. You work so hard - ever since that summer second year it's like you've been on a mission. I didn't choose what I do; it's just what's expected of me. But it's all I have. So I thought I'd make it an homage, as it were. Honestly, if not for you, I couldn't care less if it all went straight to hell." He sniffed again, ruefully. "Though I guess that's where it's going anyway."

Hikaru took another sip, his lips shaking, and Kaoru was glad, for he found he had to blink back a fair share of consternation before he could think of what to answer. In truth, he had been more than content with the mere fact that Hikaru had accepted any responsibility in his life at all, and that he behaved as if he had every intention of making an honest man out of him. To think that he could have been that much of an inspiration to his brother might have made him feel small and unworthy to the extreme, if he wasn't also one part amused and another part genuinely taken aback.

"Well, Hikaru" - he bit back a smile, stretching out his hand to take the cup away and fold both of his brother's hands into his - "That's… beautiful. Really. Thank you. But you don't need to do that."

"Yes, I do."

Kaoru smiled and pushed the tea table aside, motioning Hikaru to stretch out on the bed as he snapped on the bedside light. As Hikaru settled back into his pillow stockade from earlier, Kaoru nestled into the angle of his elbow - his head lower than his brother's, just like old times. The electric blanket radiated a pleasant warmth, and imparted the distinct feeling of nestling in a burrow. The room had grown dark and the wind whipped and snapped at the windows. Hikaru's body was very, very warm, and Kaoru brushed his knuckle across a high cheekbone as he reached to feel his forehead for a fever.

"Okay, if you say so, Big Bro. But you know I'll feel the same whether you make 5 yen or 5 billion, right?"

Hikaru wrinkled his nose with what under different circumstances might have bloomed into a cheeky grin. "Yeah, that's because you haven't had to LIVE on 5 yen."

"That's my Hikaru." Kaoru took his hand away and traced his smile with his finger, reaching up to plant a quick kiss on his cheek. "But seriously. I think you should take your own advice and allow more time for yourself. Because, honestly, you've GOT time. No one expects you to do everything right away. Mom built a company from scratch by 30, but time isn't everything, you know."

Hikaru looked down at Kaoru and hardly believed what he was seeing. His brother's heart-shaped face, his lovely dark eyes, which looked almost indigo in the scant light from the bedside lamps. Eyes so different from the ones he'd known growing up, and yet so comforting. How could it be that there was still so much he had never known about Kaoru? That his brother could sit so calmly and give his full attention to HIM when the topic at hand had so clearly reopened a gash in his heart. That he could talk so calmly about helplessness and victim blaming, and about the whole thing as if it had happened in a different life. How he could make him feel whole after only a short while, without either assigning blame or playing the apologist. He still could not tell if Kaoru had truly forgiven or forgotten, or if he simply did not want to let on that he remembered. But that was, perhaps, one of the many reasons he loved his brother: he always kept a part of his heart locked away.

Kaoru was watching him carefully from below, a winsome glow in his eyes as he slid his leg between his brother's and pressed his thigh - still in his street clothes - against something that, despite Hikaru's better judgment, was quickly taking his mind somewhere else.

"Come on," Kaoru whispered, his expression elfin. "What can I do to help you put down your burden? Right now?"

Hikaru looked back at his brother. For the first time since he had gotten work done, Hikaru had to own that the cosmetic surgery, cosmetic thought it was, suited Kaoru very well, and that his new coloring imparted a deceptive fragility to his skin. Kaoru waited, and Hikaru suddenly found himself wanting to get down on one knee before him, and to pledge him his eternal service, his loyalty, and his deepest humility.

"I want you to penetrate me, Kaoru," he said, taking his brother's hand in his. "I want you to do to me what I've been wanting to do to you all these years."


	10. Caressing the Tiger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sorry, that took forever. This fic is somehow the most challenging for me to write. Also, I feel the chapter title is embarrassingly dumb, but I could not come with up anything better, so input is welcome.]

"Well, Hikaru I would be happy to do that for you if you want, but I'm not sure now is a good time to making such decisions."

The younger twin had been silent for a few moments after Hikaru made his strange request, his hands paused over his brother's shirt, but when he spoke at last, his voice was kind - and perfectly level, as if Hikaru had asked for nothing more than to have a drink from their secret liquor stash. Hikaru was unpredictable, yes, but if there was one thing he always seemed adamant about, it was that he was the man in the relationship. Ever since things had reached a physical level between them, he had been sneaking chivalrous tropes into his behavior - like holding doors, and taking out chairs, and calling his brother "lady." And Kaoru had always wrinkled his nose at that, for even though he enjoyed embracing his feminine side, he always imagined himself as a modern woman who did not believe in gender roles. But in any case, given Hikaru's state, he doubted it was the time to experiment, and he tried to keep as calm as he could while seeking out the right words to diffuse the situation.

Except, evidently, he had failed, for as soon as he finished speaking Hikaru's mien turned about as wounded as if he had been turned down one too many times, and was ready to jump out the window.

"I know what I want," Hikaru said, looking away.

"I know you do, Hikaru." Indeed, that had been Hikaru's go-to argument since he was about four whenever he proposed something outlandish. Kaoru placed his hand on his brother's chest, and, thankfully, the latter did not pull away. "I'm just saying, you've had a tough few days, and I don't think this is the step you want to take in the heat of the moment. It's not easy, after all."

"I know."

Outside, the clouds were clearing. Earlier, it looked like a solar eclipse had overtaken the sky, but the storm had passed, leaving only a smattering of rain on the windows.

"But you'd like to do it anyway? As in, full-on? Now?"

Hikaru nodded.

"You want to go zero to sixty?"

Hikaru nodded again.

"It'll hurt. No matter how gentle I try to be."

"I know."

Kaoru paused, and studied his brother carefully. The latter's eyes were a gunpowder gray, and looked at him sadly from under heavy eyebrows. He laced his fingers with Hikaru's and pushed against his hands a bit.

"I see," he said. "You want to get hurt. My question is why."

Hikaru's brow wrinkled.

"Don't deny it, Hikaru. You're running half-naked in the cold, you're working yourself into an early grave when there's no earthly reason to do so and everyone else in your position is having fun. And now you want to be on the receiving end of sex. I want to know what you're punishing yourself for."

"Who says I'm punishing?"

"I do."

Hikaru looked away, and the light from the window threw his features into sharp relief. "You know what," he said, biting his lip.

"I want to hear you say it."

"Why do I need to say it? We both know it."

"I think it will help. Sometimes you need to feel worse before you feel better."

There he goes. Again with the being a saint bit. If it were anybody else, it would have been maddening, or Hikaru might have been fairly sure it was an act. But Kaoru was Kaoru, and the way he said it - as if kissing his kissing his knuckles, one by one, and saying he wanted him to come to his bed that night - made him want to cry against his chest until he had nothing left.

"Alright. It's because I did not treat you like I loved you," Hikaru said, squeezing his brother's hand to keep the tears from breaking through his voice. "I treated you like I owned you - because I thought I owned everything. I was king of our little world and you were… well, not the king. And it doesn't matter that we never went all the way. I raped you. Repeatedly. And now I don't know what to do with myself."

"So you need me to hurt you so you can get closure," Kaoru said, after a moment's silence.

Hikaru looked down and nodded.

"Well, I don't need to penetrate you for that." Kaoru smiled. "In fact, I don't know if it's a good idea to ruin a perfectly good act of love like that. Besides, in the off-chance that you actually enjoy it, you'll feel stiffed, as if Kaoru went and ruined it all by being nice again." He smiled, cocking his head - and his reflection in Hikaru's eyes informed him that he had guessed correctly.

"So, what do you propose as an alternative?"

"Oh, easy."

Kaoru's voice had almost grown chipper, and he tossed aside the covers, sitting up and offering his brother a hand. Hikaru accepted, raising his eyebrows. Outside, the sky had turned a pale, pearlescent yellow.

"I want you to try and hit me. As hard as you can."

Hikaru was in the middle of swinging his legs over the side of the bed and froze in mid-air.

"You want me to… what?!"

"Hit me. As hard as you can."

"W-what, like in Fight Club?"

"Pretty much."

Hikaru stared at his brother as if the latter had gone off the rails at five hundred miles an hour.

"But - but - but -"

"Oh, I know. You hurt me before so you're wondering how hurting me right now is going to fix things. I promise, there's more to it than that, but I want you to do it first."

"Uhh…" Hikaru got up to his feet, shivering slightly.

"Take your time. Maybe put something on, first."

Hikaru obeyed, going over to a dresser and pulled out some sweatpants and a zip-top hoodie. Kaoru waited as he put them on.

Where was he supposed to even hit him? His face, after all that surgery that had probably not even healed yet? Anywhere else? It burned just to think about it, when it was the same body he had held close against his so many times. Hit him? For no reason at all? That would be crossing the Rubicon. Before he might have had an excuse, at least in his own mind, but now it would unambiguously peg him as the abuser and Kaoru as the victim, and make the relationship categorically a bad one.

"Kaoru, I still don't know about this," he said, turning back to face his brother after his pants were on. "I kind of have a feeling you're the one who likes getting hurt, and that's why you've stayed with me."

Kaoru's folded his arms over his chest.

"Maybe so. But I think we both like getting hurt." He smiled. "Everyone hurts everyone else, all the time. You pretty much can't avoid it, so you convince yourself you like it. At least the two of us are somewhat aware of it."

"I still don't see what this has to do with hitting you. In fact, I don't think I want to."

"I know you don't. But it's to prove a point."

"But I don't want to be that guy anymore."

"Oh, for Goodness' sake, Hikaru, your dick is too small, and you come too fast, and you should just go fuck Haruhi already."

"WHAT?! No! Take that back!"

"No. I won't."

It was obvious Kaoru was trying to provoke him, but the mention of Haruhi and the way he had allowed her - however briefly - to come between them still smarted, and his hand flew out almost on its own accord to seize Kaoru by the collar and physically shut him up.

And he might have successfully done so, had he not suddenly found himself on his knees, unable to move because half of his head in the most terrifying, white-hot pain he ever experienced. It took him a second to realize it, but it seemed Kaoru had somehow gotten him into a headlock, and was pressing down, with several fingers, on a spot below his ear. And it was that pressure that was making him feel like every nerve was exposed and his skull was about to split open. He tried to twist out of his brother's grasp, but it was useless - it was as if he had passed out and woken up in hell.

He was just about to start to panic when Kaoru let go, and Hikaru scrambled backwards, nearly bumping his head against the bed frame.

"Oh, dear God ," he panted, wiping his eyes. "What the HELL was that?"

Kaoru smiled contentedly.

"As you can see, I am more than capable of hurting you, and I am more than capable of defending myself. But just because you can do something does not mean it should be done."

"No, shit." Hikaru rubbed the side of his head. That much made sense. If Kaoru had used force to "help" him restrain himself earlier, that would have made him no better than the lusty scum that he himself had been.

Kaoru stepped forward and offered him a hand.

"D-did you know how to do that when we were younger?" Hikaru asked, taking it tentatively.

"Maybe not THAT, specifically, but yeah." Kaoru grinned, pulling his brother up. "The ear thing is something I learned recently. But that's not the point. The point is, now you know. And if you want, THAT can be your punishment."

"That I loved and hurt a saint slash zen-master? I'm already hating myself on the daily for that."

"No, just pretend that was your punishment just now, for all those times. It was pretty bad, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, it was." Hikaru rubbed the side of his head again. His upper neck was still raw, and sent a shooting tightness up the side of his head.

"Besides, just because I let you take things farther than I wanted to before does not mean I'll keep doing it. And I think you can learn to control yourself and still enjoy being in control. Now that you know I'm a bit dangerous, you'll enjoy it more when you get to take charge of me, and you won't feel so bad because you'll know I let you. You like taking charge, don't you?"

That, Hikaru had to admit, he did. He enjoyed it immensely when he was the one to make Kaoru give in to pleasure, his entire body vibrating under his like a violin string. He enjoyed the knowledge that he was the only one who knew Kaoru's secret pleasure centers - including the exact spot between his fourth and fifth vertebrae from his hips, where all he had to do was press with one little finger and Kaoru would arch his back and squeeze his thighs together with a soft moan.

"So, you still want me up your arse?" Kaoru smiled, raising a finely chiseled eyebrow.

"Uh… Yeah… I guess so." Hikaru blushed, but if the words came out hesitantly, it was only because he had not thought Kaoru capable of such language; indeed, when it came to sex his brother was notorious for refusing to call a spade a spade. Only the tightness of Kaoru's smile - as if he was repressing a full-on grin - suggested just how much he enjoyed the taste of the last word.

"Ah. I think I'm going to need a little more conviction that that, though."

"Alright, well, I guess I'm a little scared, but I think it'll be a good way for you to show me how to take charge and still be gentle about it."

Kaoru smiled and stepped forward, taking his hand in his and putting the other on the small of his back.

"What are you worried about?" He kissed Hikaru's lips - not too deep, parting with a gentle nibble. "That it'll hurt too much? That you'll pass out?" He kissed him again. "It never hurts with Dr. Hitachiin."

Hikaru tried to reply, but his words quickly scattered as his brother kissed him a third time. Kaoru's eyes glowed warm and golden, the sun having hidden again, and his brother's whole aspect made Hikaru think of a cat. The same cat that had been put on earth to give man the pleasure of caressing the tiger.

"In fact, I think I'm not going to put my manhood inside you today," Kaoru whispered. "I'll do something different."

He drew his brother back over to the bed, and sat him down, pressing his hands between his.

"I'll be right back," he said with a conspiratorial smile.

Kaoru turned and skated over to his bookshelf, where his textbooks and a number of bins were carefully labeled and arranged. He pulled one of them out and extracted a shoebox. When he brought it back over, Hikaru noticed that the box had a label that read -

"Kaoru's fun drawer?" He giggled almost in spite of himself.

"That's right." Kaoru grinned. "Although, more accurately it should be called the 'in case of going all the way emergency drawer'." He took off the lid, and Hikaru saw that the box contained, among other things, some condoms and dental dams, a dispenser of lube, rubber gloves, a plastic bin like nurses used when taking blood, and something that Hikaru realized, with horror, was an enema.

"How long have you had this?" He chuckled, reaching to toy with a long string of condom packets in an effort to dilute his shock. Normally, Kaoru was antsiness itself in moving their relationship forward, but somehow he had still gone out of his way to procure all those things.

"Long enough." Kaoru peeled the top off a package of gloves.

"A-and what's with the condoms? I'm not diseased - I've never touched anyone else -"

"Oh, I just thought they'd be a good thing to have. You know, while we're getting used to the idea of mucking around in… Or in case a rapist bursts in here when you aren't around and my martial arts skills prove insufficient."

"Right." Hikaru laughed. "Because a rapist will totally stop and put a condom on if you ask him…"

"Well, you don't know that he won't," said Kaoru, drawing closer again and taking his brother's collar with two fingers. "Alright, let's lie down," he whispered, brushing his lips against his ear before pulling away so that Hikaru could see his eyes, which had grown inky-black.

Hikaru obeyed, and Kaoru directed him, gently, to lie back on the bed, atop several pillows. He then extended himself out by his side, cupping his jaw and kissing his lips again.

"Alright, what we're going to do today is a prostate exam," he said, his voice silky. "Your prostate is located about two inches up your rectum, and massaging it is both a very pleasant and a healthy thing."

"I-it is?"

"Yes, and it doesn't hurt at all. Or it shouldn't, anyway, when done correctly."

Kaoru's hand had already made it down to Hikaru's lower abdomen, and was slowly melting the muscles with a firm yet gentle pressure. The older wanted to say something, but tingles had already run up to his shoulders, neck, and both sides of his head, and his head began to feel like a balloon ready to detach and float away.

"If it hurts or feels uncomfortable, let me know. We can stop at any time."

Kaoru kissed him again, once on each cheekbone, as his hand traveled further down and nudged at his waistband.

"Is that alright with you?"

"Y-yes, D-doctor Hitachiin," Hikaru said, his breath suddenly heavy and his cheeks already blazing. "Y-you're so handsome… Can I have your number? S-so I can ask you out on a date when this is over?"

"I think that would be against professional ethics, Mr. Hitachiin," said Kaoru, reaching to unzip Hikaru's top and slipping down down his pants in a single deft motion before moving on to massage lower. "Though if I were to quit my job, that would be another story."

"Oh… would you?" Hikaru gasped as his brother's hands proceeded downwards, and he felt the muscles of his thighs unclench even as a cool breeze drew over his privates. "I'll… take care of you. You'll have everything you need. Although," he chuckled, a little sadly, cocking his head. "You must get offers all the time from besotted clients. After all - ahhh - you're so gentle."

"No, that's not exactly true." Kaoru had moved on to kneading the space between Hikaru's legs, and warm eddies began to move up the older twin's spine. He registered, vaguely, that he was nearly naked while Kaoru was still dressed, but somehow that did not faze him. "I think a lot of people are too shy," Kaoru added. "Which is really a shame. I get quite lonely. I see all these lovely people, and I can't make friends with any of them because I am their doctor."

"Well, it's decided, then." Hikaru smiled blissfully, closing his eyes. "After we're done here, you're handing in your notice and coming home with me, so I can do you all night long."

While he had been talking, Kaoru reached over to the bedside where he had placed the "fun drawer," and quickly slipped on a glove. Hikaru was already quite warm downstairs, but he still gasped a little when he felt his brother's hand returned to where it was.

"I see," Kaoru said, a smile in his voice. "And what's going to happen in the morning? I hardly even know you. Who's to say you won't just drop me like millionnaire playboys do, and won't report me for inappropriate relations with patients?"

The part of his palm closest to his wrist still gently massaged the space between his brother's legs, and Hikaru slowly began to feel more and more like a newborn baby, who had not learned full control of his muscles just yet. And Kaoru was warm, so warm, and nestled close beside him, and his eyes were sweet and playful.

"N-no, Dr. Hitachiin," Hikaru whispered. "I won't do that. I love you. I've been coming to this hospital for a long time for this and that, and I keep noticing you, and I've been trying to sign up to see you for months just to tell you… And - unhhh - I tried to find you outside of clinic, but you don't seem to be listed, and I think the receptionists all think I'm a stalker now, and I always lose you when I try to follow you home -"

Hikaru barely noticed how it happened - he was too focused on talking and imagining himself as a deranged, lovesick patient in an effort to ward off the butterflies. But suddenly he felt a slight fullness and the flutter - everywhere from his stomach to his heart to every nerve in his skin - became almost too much to handle.

"You've got it that bad, huh?" Kaoru gave a soft laugh. "You don't even know me. I might not be what you need at all."

"N-no… I always wanted -" It felt good, almost too good, though terribly wrong to be giving himself up this way, and a fresh blush crashed over his cheeks. Like Kaoru had said, it did not hurt, but the slight stretch left him aching for more - and made him want to offer all of himself up, but also to seize Kaoru and pin him against the bed, entering him with both tongue and manhood until they became one. "A-an if you're not happy being with me," he breathed, "You can still have a job as my family's doctor on retainer. And - and - I'll take care of you… Please… I love you…"

His knees were shaking and fire was coursing up and down his loins. More… More, please, he wanted to cry.

Kaoru slid his finger in deeper, and the movement felt like the thrill of a live wire. His flag had been flying for a long time already, but the feeling could not compare with what happened next, as Kaoru pressed his finger forward and Hikaru let fly a gasp that was almost a cry. It felt like his brother had displaced something round, and solid, and thick that he never known he had, and sweet, intoxicating tightness suddenly filled up the entire space between his hips. Kaoru's other hand felt its way over to his nipple, hard and covered in goosebumps like the rest of his skin. And then the two live wires connected, sending a white hot wave - this time of pleasure - down his spine.

"Shh, it's okay. I love you too. Just relax," Kaoru whispered, moving to sit up. "Is that good? Do you like that? Should I touch you THERE, too?"

Hikaru nodded, thought it looked almost like a spasm, and Kaoru leaned over his brother slightly, taking hold of him elsewhere. For a split second, Hikaru really did feel like he was going to pass out, but Kaoru squeezed tighter and the lightning that had been coursing through him found its ground.

…

"Hmm, you LIKED that, didn't you?" Kaoru laughed. The two of them lay atop the covers, limbs entwined amid a mess of partially removed clothing. The sky outside had turned an opalescent chartreuse, and even in the twilight of the room both their faces glowed.

"Well, you GOT me there," chuckled Hikaru, the mock eye-roll prominent in his voice if not in his features. Indeed, his features were too spent to express anything at all.

"So do you want that every night now, or was this just a one-off?" Kaoru smiled.

"Mm, whatever you want, my beloved Dr. Hitachiin."

"Okay, well, I wouldn't mind a repeat performance. But as far as I'm concerned, you'll always be my seme."


	11. Birthday Boys

"Happy birthday, Kaoru!" Tamiko ran across the driveway, and caught her friend in her arms. It was high summer, and the sun was pouring off the rooftops and making the pavement bake. Kaoru's classmate wore full Lolita garb down to the fake eyelashes and penciled on freckles, and her dress was one she made herself, courtesy of her newfound passion for sewing.

"Oh, thank you, Tamiko," Kaoru said, laughing and returning the hug that comically emphasized their height difference. "I guess I can finally drink legally, huh?" **

(**20 is the legal drinking age in Japan. They're in their second year of uni.)

"And you're - you're wearing a -" She hugged him tighter, suppressing a squeal.

Kaoru was indeed wearing something new, and it was obvious from a mile away. Namely, he had traded in his khaki pants for a white tennis skirt, and his legs, were he a girl, might have been described as straight, toned, and a mile and a half long. Indeed, even he could not help but keep glancing at them, as if afraid of what the sun would do but also frightfully proud.

"Y-e-eeah," he said, sucking in his cheeks in a failed attempt to suppress a grin. "I didn't think embracing my gender-fluid identity at school or work was the best idea just yet, but on my own time, I thought I'd take your advice."

She broke the hug and took in the expanse of the estate - or what could be seen from where they stood.

"Wow," Tamiko sighed. "Your house is gigantic!"

"Uh, thanks, I guess." Kaoru smiled, pulling his head slightly into his shoulders. He turned to look at the view from Tamiko's angle, and caught sight of his brother emerging from the front door.

"A-and, there's my Hikaru." Kaoru raised a hand and waved.

Hikaru returned the wave and hurried over to join them - and when Tamiko caught sight of him up close she could not help but gasp.

"Hello, Tamiko" - the older twin extended a hand, once Kaoru completed the formal introductions. "I've heard a lot about you. It's good to finally meet you."

She had spent so long quietly resenting him, even though she had not wanted to, and it was still hard to accept his presence in front of her, much less his hand. Kaoru had been very kind, and had done what he could to avoid pouring salt on the wound. Over the last few months, they had become even better friends. But no matter what anyone said, there was no way to prepare for meeting the person responsible for countless nights' worth of tears on her pillow. It was especially hard to keep a straight face when that person's hand other hand was on Kaoru's waist, and the way he stood and looked at him made it clear that they had already, for some time, been sharing much more than Kaoru let on.

But what was most awful was the way Kaoru looked at him. If even at the worst of times Kaoru could walk into a room and soon there would be light penetrating into every corner, from the moment he saw Hikaru Kaoru had looked like it was already his wedding day.

"It's nice to meet you too," she said, taking Hikaru's hand.

And if you ever treat him badly, she thought, I will murder you. I will shred every ounce of flesh you have. I'll pulverize your pretty-boy bones.

"Well, good." Hikaru grinned. "Kaoru says you're one of the best in your year, thinking about neurosurgery? Now I know who I have to ask for help if my neurons need rewiring - which they probably will, given how I've already got a screw or two loose." He chuckled.

His eyes laughed the same way as Kaoru's did, and his hand was also almost the same - a bit more narrow than the average boy's and lightly calloused, but in a pleasant way. And just like Kaoru, he was also an impeccable dresser, and smelled just as pleasant. Suddenly, she found it hard to think about ripping him limb from limb.

"Excellent, it'a deal," she said. "But Kaoru would have to evaluate you first. After all, it's not a good idea to go in with a knife when you can send in big pharma."

"Alright," Kaoru interjected, clapping both of them on the back. "Let's save the banter contest for lunch. How would you like to see what mom gave me?"

"Of course, we'd love to," replied Tamiko, grinning.

"Yeah, I'd really like to know what all the fuss is about." Hikaru glanced at Tamiko. "He won't even tell ME what it is."

Kaoru extracted a key ring from his pocket.

"Alright, friends," he said, pausing for dramatic effect. "Please meet" - he clicked a button, and the garage door nearest them began to rise with a low clatter - "Prince Yuki Sohma."

The door came to a stop, and beyond it stood a convertible, blue like the deepest of tropical waters and the most searing of skies. A rampant stallion decorated the front grill.

Tamiko broke rank and all but stumbled forward like a somnambulist.

"K-Kaoru, is that a -" She gasped.

"Yep. From Italy. I just finished getting it refitted so the driver's seat is on the right."

"I've never seen one before…"

Hikaru chuckled, hugging his brother tighter around the waist and pulling him closer. "Well, after today, you will not only have seen one, you might have even touched one too - not to mention in ridden in one. Assuming Kaoru did not just open the garage door to show off - because that would be very rude."

"Oh, if you INSIST, Hikaru," said Kaoru with a heavily stylized eye-roll. He pressed another button on the controller, and Prince Yuki responded with a click of locks and the yelp of security disarming.

Kaoru proceeded to the car and opened the back door for Tamiko - with Hikaru close at his heels to open the driver's door for HIM. Once everyone was settled, Kaoru turned back to Tamiko.

"Alright, Tami-chan," he said. "I might have told you that in high school Hikaru and I were known as the Little Devil type. And today, you might just see why."

…

Hikaru adjusted his cuff links, which he still had on from the party, and straightened his collar, running a wet hand through his hair as he smiled at his reflection. He had just finished steadying his nerves for the fifth time that day since the drive in Prince Yuki Sohma, and after a busy afternoon of meeting with family and friends, he was finally about to have some alone time with Kaoru.

Pride had never been one of Kaoru's faults; unlike his brother, he did not have the personality of an alpha male, and more often than not he attributed his success to luck, hard work, and help from the right people at the right time. But if there was one thing that made him irrationally proud, it was the way his looks reflected on Hikaru's face, and to that end he kept them up with a catlike fastidiousness. Yet even so, he never liked to let his brother see all of him. They showered frequently together, but even then, Kaoru tended to let the shower get very steamy first, and covered himself in soap suds before he allowed Hikaru in - only to immediately slip into his robe once they were finished. Indeed, he was only fully naked when he was in Hikaru's arms in the dark under the covers - which was in stark contrast to Hikaru's habits, for the older twin loved to flounce around in the nude at every opportunity.

And that was why, when Hikaru came back into the bedroom, he nearly dropped the gift box he was carrying. Kaoru lay sprawled on the bed with a long cashmere scarf around his neck - pearly white with a pattern of gold thread - and his legs were tented up just-so as the loose end streamed to cover what lay between them. In the bright light of the sun, still relatively high in the sky though it was just past six, the tight, milky-white flesh hit the eyes like a storm of shattered glass.

"Happy birthday, Mr. Future President," said Kaoru with the smile equally worthy of a model or a courtesan. "I thought, maybe for a change, you could do anything you wanted to me. Whether it's lying by my side and reading a picture book, or hog-tying me and pretending I'm your prison wife for the day."

"A-are you serious?" Hikaru stuttered, his voice echoing as if from the hoary depths of a well.

"Never been more serious in my life."

"But..." Hikaru swallowed, feeling his better sense draining away by the bucket. "W-What if I won't be able to control myself?"

"I think you will. You've gotten a lot better at it."

That much was true. Since that Valentine's day, they had grown even closer physically, and had were now much more comfortable talking about boundaries, what things meant, and what they didn't. They touched each other almost without hesitation now, enjoying each other's skin, and it was almost like when they were little, before the drama with the sex began. Oddly enough, the fact that Kaoru was already in medical school made it easier to explore their relationship. The younger twin was no longer worried about his future, and no longer so paranoid that he insisted quickies were all he had the time for. And Hikaru was growing more accepting of his love for domination, having realized that it was something he could take or leave and that Kaoru did not hate him. It was a slow process, with Hikaru still failing to believe, from time to time, that Kaoru really did want something. But Kaoru was also no longer the self-effacing person he had been in the days of his eating disorder, and that was a fact even Hikaru could not deny, even if he still could hardly bear to look at his brother in the altogether.

"B-but that's because you're not normally like this..." he tried to protest.

"Well, I WANT you to love me. Like this. Now, are you a seme, devil-take-it, or a wet dishrag?"

Kaoru's skin looked like it was encrusted with thousands of crystals ablaze in the sunlight, and Hikaru did not dare to look down past his neck, much less think about the front of his own trousers. Which was just as well, for they felt very far away from his rapidly spinning head, and were probably as far gone as his sanity.

"Alright." He smiled, something of the old devilish spark rising to his eye. "Keep your panties on."

Still a bit hesitant, he walked over, residual embarrassment rising to his cheeks as the stiffness between his legs chafed against his underwear. Sitting down by Kaoru's side, he loosened his brother's scarf and toyed for a moment with the tassels, then lifted his arms and looped the scarf around his wrists and the bars of the headboard. The task done, he felt himself breathe easier. Now that he was closer, he could concentrate better on Kaoru's face.

"You know I love you," he said, cupping his brother's chin and pulling his lips into an embrace. "Too bad this is the only way I could make you mine." He lowered his voice. "We're from two enemy houses in the Era of the Warring States. Your family gave you to me as part of a non-aggression pact, so you're a basically glorified hostage."

Kaoru picked the cue right up, and the next time he spoke his voice was tinged with tears. "Please. Don't hurt me," he whispered. "Let me go. Send me back to my family."

"You know I can't do that, Hitachiin-sama." Hikaru let his lips curl into an urbane smile.

"If you loved me, you wouldn't threaten my family and destroy my home. And you would not humiliate me like this."

"Now, tut-tut, I just need to have this scarf because I don't trust you yet. It took us a lot of hard bargaining for them to give you up, and I don't want it going to waste. Time is money, and you should be grateful. It's silk, and far less painful than rope would be."

"Well, don't stare." Kaoru brought his knees together. "I'm a prince, just like you, even if my people are far away."

Kaoru looked at him from under set eyebrows, and Hikaru let out a slow laugh, tossing his head and running his fingers through his hair as he surveyed the goods with an unabashedly possessive eye.

"Yes, you are indeed. That's why you're a lover worthy of me. And that's why I won't do very much to you tonight. You're a virgin, right? Ever been with a man?"

Kaoru shook his head, his gaze unbending.

"Well, then, if I tried to do what I want, you'd cry and grit your teeth and lie there like a log until it's over, and where's the fun in that? I want you to enjoy it. I want you swinging from the rafters and screaming my name with ecstasy."

"I will never enjoy it with you. You're twisted," Kaoru spat.

"I'd watch what I said if I were you," Hikaru chuckled, his voice as cold as his eyes were smoldering. "If you obey me and make me happy, who knows, I might even dress you up in silk and make you my princess consort. Then you might even be able to see your family. But if you keep being rude and making me unhappy, you'll stay right where you are - tied up, and naked."

Kaoru continued to glare at him, and Hikaru smiled.

"Come, give your lover a kiss." He stretched out by his side and took hold of his chin, running the other hand down a sculpted belly and thighs. "Looks like somebody's happy," he added, his fingers grazing over a part of Kaoru's body that was growing firmer.

He leaned toward him, drawing his brother's lips to his once more, and Kaoru accepted it. Hikaru tasted his twin's mouth for a very long time, the moistness and sweetness reminding him of something else, and then ran his hands up and down his back, guiding him to turn towards him. It took a second, but Kaoru obeyed - with a soft moan.

"See, that wasn't so painful, was it?" Hikaru said, drawing away at last and propping himself up on his elbow, his hand still on Kaoru's waist. "I want to give you a present - for being so good to me so far."

"Alright."

Hikaru sat up and got to his feet, walking over to where he dropped the gift box.

"Well, if you have a gift for me," said Kaoru, a shade of defiance back in his voice, "You should let me open it myself."

"Ah, no such luck, Hitachiin-sama." Hikaru clicked his tongue, pulling on the bow as he sat back down. "I don't want my prize running off - but don't worry. It's a very nice gift, and I know you'll enjoy it, so there's no need for embarrassment on either side."

The ribbon undone, Hikaru put it aside and peeled apart the seams of the wrapping paper. A flat jewelry box came into view, and Hikaru flipped back the lid.

"Oh, a pearl necklace." Kaoru smiled with one side of his mouth. "How clever. Though to be honest I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull it off. No matter how keen you are on dressing me in silks, I have too much of the samurai in me."

"Oh, don't worry, Hitachiin-sama, I think you will pull them off just fine." Hikaru smirked, taking out the accessory and draping it over his fingers as he inspected it in the light. "These are beads, but not for your neck."

Kaoru's eyes widened. "No..." He glanced back at the box, nearly breaking character as the word turned into a laugh.

"Well, I can't come inside you just yet, since we agreed we'd try to keep you pure and clean for as long as possible" - Hikaru smiled, his voice softening as well - "But there are a few things we can do to get you less tight, so you don't spend the honeymoon unable to sit down and walking like a penguin."

"Okay." Kaoru chuckled, the vengeful Sengoku prince suddenly forgotten. He glanced at the pearls with a mild hint of apprehension, but it was a far cry from what Hikaru was used to seeing. "Well, you know where the Kaoru Fun Drawer is. Don't be afraid to use too much lube. You basically need enough to grease a wild boar, and then some more."

Hikaru nodded with a grin he seemed unable to suppress and hopped off the bed, waltzing over to the book case without further invitation. He returned with a bath towel that had been draped over the back of a chair, and the large dispenser of lube.

"Alright, my love," he said. "Let's fast forward this role play to when you don't resent me anymore, and our houses are at peace, and you are my beloved bride. I still want to take it slow with you, though." He toyed with the pearls again, threading them over his fingers.

"Okay. But that means you need to untie me."

"Oh, I'd love to. But now you being tied up represents how I'll never let you go, and that you trust me enough to submit to me fully. Plus, you told me to do whatever I liked."

"Okay, fair enough. I'm just getting a little stiff, is all."

"Well, why didn't you say so? I don't want my love hurting." Hikaru put the pearls aside, and gently loosened the binds.

Kaoru beamed, stretching out his arms. "Oh, good, now I can hug you properly."

"Here, let me put the towel down. So we don't get the covers all dirty."

Hikaru undid his tie and slipped off his blazer, letting it fall to the floor. He then propped himself up on his elbow again, unzipped his pants, and unscrewed the dispenser. The younger twin shivered a bit, suddenly feeling the fibers of the towel bite into his back, but in the rays of the westering sun Hikaru looked as if he had brought the entire world to heel for that one moment.

And then the older twin leaned down and kissed him, and Kaoru wrapped his arms around his neck, and when the first bead entered him, he hardly noticed.


	12. Welcome to Yesterday

AGE: 26

POST-GRAD RESIDENCY TRAINING

Part 1: Welcome to Yesterday

Hikaru looked at his Perrier in the light of the airplane window, and thought the bubbles looked like diamonds. He finished off the last of it in one gulp, and handed the glass to the flight attendant just as the PA system came on to announce their descent into Honolulu.

Every other week for the last three years, with few exceptions, Hikaru had made the same eight-hour trip to visit his brother, who was in residency at the University of Hawaii as a psychiatrist. When he had first learned that Kaoru, then 24 and fresh out of Todai Medical School, had wanted to do that, Hikaru had been gutted. But Kaoru had brought it up at family council, and it was clear to all concerned that it only made sense if he wanted to start an eating disorder clinic in Japan one day. Their home country still paid little attention to the problem; therefore, going abroad to gain insight, garner connections, and learn about treatments was only the right thing to do - and their parents lost no time in giving him their blessing.

And yet - even though they had gone to different universities, the brothers had never spent more than a day apart. Even when Kaoru spent an exchange year at UCLA, Hikaru finagled a stint abroad for himself as well, convincing his mother to let him manage Hitachiin's presence in Hollywood. But that time, it was only a year. Now, Kaoru would be leaving for three and Yuzuha could not spare Hikaru for that long. After all, H-Group's presence in Hawaii was developed enough as it was, with three boutiques in Honolulu turning a tidy profit. As a consequence, Hikaru was still embarrassed to think just how much he had sulked the day it was decided that Kaoru would go and he would stay. In fact, he had sulked all of that week, and all of that month - even though he had promised to let Kaoru go once in a while if that's what it too to help a schizos without trust funds. In practice, after all, even seeing himself as separate from his brother still took a great deal of effort, and he had never been good with boundaries courtesy of Yuzuha never having respected his.

The day he saw Kaoru off was the worst in his life. When he returned home, he felt like a giant hole had been punched in his heart, his limbs ripped off, and a knife stuck in his innards. He locked himself in his room, turned off his phone - a crime, considering his place in life - and collapsed into bed. He cried like he had never cried before, and a few hours later, he awoke with what felt like a hangover to find twenty missed messages: ten angry ones from Yuzuha and two from Kaoru himself.

But Hikaru had gone a long way since then. For one thing, Kyouya had become more and more of mentor to Kaoru, and had much advice to give on maintaining a long-distance relationship as well. Indeed, the twins were hard-pressed not to listen to him, for he had a long twelve-timezone romance under his belt, and had just settled in California with his new wife Gaby - a friend of the twins from their stint at a U.S. eating disorder clinic. As a result, slowly but surely, with much credit owed to the iPad FaceTime (™) app, much hugging of stuffed animals, and many Martinis to help him fall asleep at night, Hikaru got used to things, and even discovered a very pleasant bonus. It turned out that Kaoru had a hidden talent for writing letters. He seemed to pen emails whenever he could - filling them with sweet nothings and stories of Hawaiian local color that made Hikaru laugh until there were tears in his eyes. Never mind that he might have been in a meeting or at the atelier - he had perfected the art of furtively reading his cell phone under the table. And on top of that, his heart had learned to flutter in a new way every time his brother's name lit up his phone, and the words of the messages, like little pieces of Kaoru, certainly made things easier at night. After all, Hikaru would tell himself as he re-read them, it was only three years. It wasn't as if Kaoru was gone forever.

Early on, Kyouya had told him to try to live his life and to not live for the meetings, yet Hikaru could not help but feel like the meaning of his life was reaffirmed every time he set foot on a plane to Honolulu. It never mattered how many strings he had to pull to get two straight days free, or how much sleep he would have to lose to get away with it. It did not even matter if Kaoru was unexpectedly called into work while he was there - if all he got to do was lay alone in Kaoru's bed all day, watching movies and drinking wine, it was invariably worth it so long as he got to watch his brother take off his shoes by the door, lovingly folding in the laces. And then he would prepare a pot of pho just the way Kaoru liked it, and they would fall asleep together over a DVD - and that would be heaven, because even for the sake of five minutes with Kaoru saying nothing at all, Hikaru would have done terrible things.

The descent had begun, and Hikaru entered the last few strokes into a work document before closing up his laptop. He had rushed out to the airport right after the end of his day's appointments, and had not even changed out of his suit and tie. He swallowed to keep his ears from popping, and his heart fluttered just like the first time. He looked outside, and saw the individual buildings as they came into view, and caught sight of a few boats in the harbor, nestled between the white arms of the city. He loved Honolulu now, if for no other reason that Kaoru woke there every morning.

Hikaru had also always loved airports. They had a very special energy. On the one hand, they were places of transience and impermanence - each looking hardly different from the next aside from a few markers of regional identification. And yet, they were also places where emotion stirred and churned, from the dullness of battle fatigue to the towering heights of love and heartbreak.

And now, of course, he had a particular fondness for the Honolulu airport. By 27, he was plenty used to globetrotting on company business, and every time he did, he was picked up by either his or someone else's staff - almost always bowing - or by people holding name placards. The last was particularly annoying, as ever since he had taken up running H-Group with his mother, seeing his name in print became one of the most uncomfortable parts of the job. At airports, however, it was thankfully growing to be an increasingly rarer occurrence, as he had his distinctive look to thank for people in the business recognizing him on sight.  
But at Honolulu, there would be no uniformed minions, no bowing staff, and no name signs. Just his brother, his lover, his sometime psychiatrist, and his very best friend - Kaoru.

As the plane touched down, Hikaru pressed "send" on three text messages he had been composing. One to Yuzuha, whose obsession with tracking her childrens' movements he had finally accepted by his mid-20's; one to his little sister Ageha, now ten, to wish her luck on a cello recital; and one to his brother.

Minutes and a whirlwind of security and passport stamping later, Hikaru spotted Kaoru from across the arrivals hall, waving -- and, just like every time, the older twin felt his heart skip a beat.

Ever since Kaoru had entered medical school, he had gotten a subtle nose job and began wearing dark contact lenses, dying his hair brown, and growing it to just below the chin in keeping with his new identity. He had also gotten a subtle nose job that made his nose more Greco-roman than ski-jump. On paper, he had become Kaoru Hitachi, born female but living as a male, and it was under that name that he was working to become a doctor and, someday, Hikaru's wife, whereas the "real" Kaoru Hitachiin was said to have settled in America.  
But more importantly, ever since Kaoru adopted the fiction of gender-fluidity, he had also taken up wearing dresses. It began as a joke, and apart from their plan there had never been much that pegged Kaoru as the more feminine one. He was perhaps more soft-spoken, less quick to act, and more "sensitive" according to their friends, but that was about the end of it. And yet, they had been poring over their friend Shar's designs, and Hikaru had said - "I'd pay to see you wear that." Shar, whom they had met at the same eating disorder clinic as Gaby the summer everything changed, had since become a junior creative director at Hitachiin Group. And as a result, one of her early designs ended up being adopted into the spring women's line two years ago. The dresses had prints that seemed to be one thing but were actually another, and Kaoru owned two pieces that he wore from time to time. Never at work, of course, where he identified as a man, but once in a while he would go shopping or running errands in a naive silken shirt-dress. And he found he rather enjoyed it - for if dropping the last syllable of his name gave him taste of anonymity, it was next to nothing compared the exhilaration of leaving behind the cardinal identifier of gender.

Of course, the unique set of problems faced by commoner women took some getting used to. The simple act of wearing a skirt attracted more men's attention than he could have imagined - even though he had always been sure that men preferred women with more of a hint of breast and softer flesh. And while getting noticed was not uncomfortable in itself - for he and his brother had always attracted looks as pale redheads with Hapa features - living as a dark-haired woman meant he had to get used to a whole new way of being interacted with. Indeed, men not only looked at him as if appraising what they saw, but many asked if they could "get to know" him, and some even tried to follow him home. But in the end, the benefits outweighed the drawbacks, especially since he WAS a man, with security guards on speed dial and several years of Aikido under his belt. That, along with a pair of large sunglasses and a look of perfect opacity he had gleaned from Haruhi, was more than enough. And after all - what had his name and his sex ever really given him? All they did was restrict him from being with the one person he loved.

That day, Kaoru Hitachi(in) was looking splendid, with eyes painted through with olive and purple shadows. He also wore a dress with bell sleeves and a tulip skirt that ended just above the knee, and the fabric was Shar's signature - a houndstooth pattern of mauve and beige that was actually butterflies. On his feet, he wore gladiator sandals that reached just above his ankles, and a tan Dooney & Burke purse hung over his shoulder. But best of all, in spite of everything - despite even the nose job - he was unmistakably Kaoru, and still radiated the same shy, mischievous aura that made him one in six billion.

When Hikaru saw him, he remembered the one other reason he loved Honolulu airport more than all others, and far better than Tokyo-Narita in particular.

At Narita, he never would have been able to run halfway across the arrivals hall, sweep his brother off his feet, twirl him in the air, and dip him to the floor and kiss him.

At least not without attracting a host of disapproving stares.


	13. Driving in Honolulu

Part 2: Driving in Honolulu

The first tender feeling Hikaru had ever had for his brother was his desire to protect him. Kaoru was getting into scrapes of various kinds from the day he was born, and more than once Hikaru wondered if his brother would survive if he was not there to watch over him. But as they grew up, he realized that Kaoru LIKED danger. Together with his propensity for anxiety, it made an odd personality quirk - particularly since Kaoru managed to remain as calm as the eye of the storm when it came to other people's crises.

Now in his 20's, Kaoru had developed two hobbies that Hikaru found troubling. At 16, he had already built a secret liquor cabinet where he always kept a bottle of Umeshu. By 20, he had become a connoisseur not only of Umeshu but of wine and sake and beer, and could easily find his way around a menu of harder spirits. And wherever he lived, the younger twin always kept a bottle of expensive red on hand. The only lucky circumstance was that Kaoru never drank too much - always just short it, as if he enjoyed flirting with oblivion.

Kaoru's second hobby greeted them as they made their way to the parking lot, talking and laughing as Hikaru held his hand on the small of his brother's back. When Kaoru turned 20, he asked for a fast car for his coming of age birthday, and Yuzuha got him a Ferrari. (He had also asked for a motorcycle, but Yuzuha put a Manolo Blahnik-clad foot down.) Kaoru named the car Prince Yuki Sohma and took it out quite often, most often disguised as a woman. And while he was relatively free in sharing the rest of his possessions, no one else was allowed to touch the ignition. Not that Hikaru would have wanted to, anyway: the car accelerated to hurricane speeds in the blink an eye, and was eerily quiet for all the horsepower it had under the hood. Once, Kaoru had taken him driving in the country, and all Hikaru could remember when he got out - violently green around the gills - was that it was the first time he had forgotten to fear for Kaoru's life because he was more afraid for his own.

Now that Kaoru lived in Hawaii and pretended to be a commoner, however, Prince Yuki had (thankfully) been replaced by a top-of-the line midnight-blue Audi. The older twin ran his fingers down its side as he broke contact with his brother's back and walked to the passenger side. Kaoru smiled shyly, a bedroom look flickering in his eyes as he clicked the locks open.

"Oh, Kaoru, you'd think this car was part of your own body."

"Oh, but it is, Hikaru."

"No, you're far more beautiful," said Hikaru, getting in.

"I don't think so," Kaoru laughed, rolling his eyes just the slightest bit with a soft smile. "I'm not the finest in German engineering."

"You might be," Hikaru cocked his eyebrow. "At least in part." The twins were the result of Yuzuha's with a man neither of them knew, as the father who raised them was unable to have children. "In fact, you're better. You're the synergy of the finest Germany and Japan have to offer."

Kaoru was already inside, and had already gotten the engine purring. The stereo and air conditioner had turned on automatically as the dashboard lit up, and Kaoru lowered the volume on a track of bubblegum J-pop.

"Nah," he said. "My money's on us being half-French. For one thing, mom has far more work contacts there, and what other kind of genes would make us this depraved?" The younger twin dropped his eyelids and let his fingers brush over his brother's forearm before reaching for the gearshift.

"Half-Chanel, half Mitsubishi. Unparalleled speed, classic beauty and charm." Hikaru returned the smoldering look as he imagined himself doing the most French of things to Kaoru. "Unless we're half Scottish or Irish. Mom loves her hair so much, I wouldn't it put it past her to take a ginger to bed just so she could propagate it."

"Half-Mitsubishi, half Burberry." Kaoru laughed. He had steered the car onto the street, and Hikaru leaned over to kiss the side of his neck, for Kaoru was very strict about having his vision obstructed while driving.

Every time Hikaru saw Kaoru again, he marveled, as if meeting him for the first time. Who would have known that the boy who grew up by his side would turned into this strange being who enjoyed cross-dressing, picking people's brains, and driving at Mach speeds? And yet what was more surprising was that all those things made him love him more, not less.

"Anyway, we're already trans-human as it is," Kaoru said, chuckling. "Just imagine yourself without your cell phone."

They had gotten onto the highway, and he watched in awe as his brother made tight lane changes, slowing down and speeding up without a single complaint from the engine.

"You're marvelous, you know that, Kaoru?" Hikaru said. "Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember that you actually exist. I still can't get over how good you are at this, and how you like speed. It's almost doesn't make sense." Hikaru himself had a fleet of company cars and did not like to drive, which only made his admiration greater.

"What about it doesn't make sense?" Kaoru's eyes did not break from the road.

"Well, you're so…" - he searched for the right word - "Nice. And humble. And disciplined…"

What he truly wanted to say was that his brother had nothing in commong with the thugs of Tokyo Drift who drag-raced in expensive cars down the concrete jungle, but Kaoru smiled before he had finished.

"So? What does that have to do with liking speed?"

"You're too… much of a good boy. You're the… uke; you're… feminine."

Kaoru took his hand off the steering wheel long enough to adjust a strand of hair behind his ear.

"Wearing dresses has nothing to do with being feminine," he said. "It's more of a disguise than anything else. I get to be anyone I want, and it makes me feel free. As for being disciplined, it takes a lot of control to drive fast and neither get caught nor crash."

Indeed, even in the city, on a lazy parkway, Kaoru was playing just the tip with the speed limit, a pod under the dashboard beeping every time it detected a police radar. And yet Kaoru looked the very image of calmness in a storm, doing everything with practiced ease, even though Hikaru got the sense that it required every fibre of his being just to do what he did and talk at the same time. Indeed, driving in Honolulu was a skill onto itself - for given that Oahu was a tiny island, space came at a premium. To that end, the blocks were short, and the lanes of even the largest streets were exceedingly narrow. But even more than that, the lanes split, merged, forced turns, and morphed into parking spots almost entirely without warning. Frequently, they even serpentined and failed to line up from one side of the intersection to the next; at other times, lane markers disappeared altogether. And as they neared Waikiki, where Kaoru lived in one a company-owned condos, throngs of tourists and taxi drivers with vendettas against the world began to pose a new set of problems.

"Needless to say, this makes me feel free, too."

Hikaru wondered, inwardly, at this strange sort of freedom: one that required so much self-control that it took everything Kaoru seemed to have. He wondered, too, what made his brother feel so constrained that he craved freedom so much. After all, he was the second son, with far fewer social and familial obligations. For instance - if he, Hikaru, had announced that he did not want to work for the family company, there would have been a hullabaloo and a scandal. But Kaoru's efforts had been applauded and encouraged. Hikaru did not resent it; it was simply a fact: Kaoru COULD relax - he just had a very odd way of doing it. And while Hikaru always wanted to remind him to be careful, Kaoru's clear aficion and superior expertise always forced him to think better of it. After all, he did not want to come off as insulting.

"You're amazing, you know," he declared finally."You almost had me fooled, thinking you weren't a control freak. I almost thought you missed that gene."

They laughed, nearly in unison, at the irony of the statement.

"Well, nobody said that being a skirt-wearing uke meant giving up control, dear brother," Kaoru countered as soon as he was able to keep a straight face. "The only difference is, I don't need to be the Walter White of the fashion world to get my fix."

His eyes had fallen on Hikaru as they flashed to the rear-view mirror, and he noticed that even at a speed of 30-odd miles per hour on the busy Ala Moana strip, his brother was looking quite queasy.

"Speaking of genes," he added, "YOU certainly seem to have missed the adrenaline junkie gene." He let his fingers skip over Hikaru's hand - a little pale and clutching the seat divider - before taking the wheel again. "Don't worry, though. I know I'm carrying precious cargo. And I know just the place for something that'll settle your stomach."

Hikaru sighed - Kaoru always "knew a place," and it always "just happened" to carry some boutique variety of liquor that was allegedly to die for. He began to wonder what would happen if he encouraged Kaoru take control all the time, and not just in the realm of cars, drunken revelry, and occasionally in bed. The result, he thought, was either too wonderful or too frightening to contemplate.


	14. Kaoru Asks a Question

Part 3: Kaoru Asks a Question

It happened later in the afternoon, as the two of them were having oysters on the terrace of a Waikiki restaurant. White sands stretched beyond the parapet, a parti-colored quilt of beach towels and umbrellas, and the brilliant blue of the ocean lay just beyond. The worst of the heat had passed, and the sun simmered pleasantly on their faces. Hikaru had found himself wondering if Kaoru had put on sunscreen, what with the short-sleeved dress he wore. Although he had lived in Hawaii for two and a half years, his skin was still the same fragile white it had always been.

The choice beverage that Kaoru had thought would be just the thing was a Bloody Mary with tomato juice made from local tomatoes and a Finnish brand of Vodka that Hikaru had never heard of. He had to own, though, that the whole thing tasted exceedingly fresh, like tomatoes straight off the patch with the vodka adding just the right bit of fire. He looked back at a cheekily grinning Kaoru - whose facial expression spelled, as it always did at such moments, a self-satisfied "I told you so" - and ran his leg up and down his brother's shin under the table.

"Ugh-oh, Kaoru, you're sandal's undone," he had said.

"Well, it's your fault, Hikaru," Kaoru shot back, noisily slurping up an oyster and smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "You fix it." Hikaru had felt himself fall in love a little more. Kaoru's eating habits had stubbornly refused to evolve with the rest of him, and were still those of a feisty five-year-old.

The older twin got up from his seat and kneeled by his brother's chair. As he fiddled with the clasp, he reached into his pocket. Once the shoe was in order, he looked up, took Kaoru's hand, and said,

"Pop, pop."

Kaoru looked down, and saw that the hand that was in Hikaru's was wearing a ring made of either silver or white gold, with two strings of diamonds flanking a band of translucent orange. And Hikaru had adjusted his legs so that he was down on one knee.

He had not exactly planned it that way - it simply happened. And it had not been a surprise either, strictly speaking. They had been "engaged" since their summer at a Hawaii eating disorder clinic ten years ago, when they first cooked up the idea to give Kaoru a new, "secret" identity, and realized that their separate paths might be exactly what would keep them together.

But before they had made it to the door of Kaoru's condo Hikaru had still considered simply pressing the emergency stop button in the elevator and leaving a very indecent recording on the surveillance cameras. And then, when they made it out - he knew not how - they proceeded to nearly knock over one of floral arrangements that adorned the hall, and it took Kaoru twice as long as it usually did to open his door, for he was forced to do it while his brother's lips were on his, his back was against the selfsame door, and his other hand was doing what it could to pry both of his brother's off him, but none too effectively.

But that was not even the half of it. The moment the door shut with a violent slam, the keys still in the lock, Kaoru felt himself being twirled in the air. And as soon as his feet felt the floor, he felt Hikaru's hands fumbling for the closure of his dress, lips coming up for air just long enough to curse the buttons' size. And at the same time, although Kaoru could not have been certain, his own hands were making short work of Hikaru's tie.

"Mhm, I've been wanting to rip that dress off you since I saw it…"

"Well, don't do that," Kaoru gasped as another volley of kisses just missed his lips, leaving his chin and jawline sopping, "It's actual silk…"

"Fuck that, I'll get you another one…" the older twin growled, his pants already straining against his twin's answering flesh as the latter felt his back smash against the kitchen island. Kaoru let got of his brother's collar, grabbed the counter with both hands, and jumped up so that the other's face was against his collar bone. From above, he noticed the afternoon sunlight had begun to flood the floors past the vertical blinds, and suddenly leaned back and began to laugh.

"Oh, dear, it's almost too cliche, isn't it?"

Hikaru paused, blinking languidly like a cat in the sunlight that had just snapped away. It took a moment, but Kaoru realized his brother's knee was on the counter and his hands were on his hips, gripping so hard that he was sure to have bruises. The dress, miraculously, still clung to him, hanging by the sleeves halfway down the arms.

"You've asked to make an honest man out of me, you've given me a piece of jewelry, and now we're going to do it, aren't we? Do it for real, I mean, not just fingering, sucking, and Oxford style**."

(**google it ;P)

The frenzy successfully blinked away from his eyes, Hikaru was looking up at him with a sweet expression that, were he anyone else, might have gotten him accused of servility.

"We can do whatever you want, Kaoru."

The younger twin chewed his lip and looked down. He certainly WANTED to go all the way, and could think of no better time to do it. Both of them were well over the age for a first REAL night, mostly due to Kaoru's shyness. But his better sense as a physician screamed wait, don't be a fool, have the safe sex talk while you're both still upright. Of course, the idea of a safe sex talk with his brother, who had also been his lover for the better part of his life, seemed almost comical. They had only ever been with each other… The only time Kaoru even came close to being with someone else was when a friend had kissed him when he was 16, once again in Hawaii. Surely, it couldn't have been very different with Hikaru.

Except… how sure was he, exactly? The thought both surprised and mortified him.

Come to think of it… Hikaru had always been a very… tactile person, to whose language of love Kaoru had slowly grown accustomed. In the time they lived together, they had always had their fill of bed amusements even when they had little free time to share, and in the two and a half years they had lived apart they did all they could to make up for lost time during their visits. Still, Hikaru had always done his fair share of bonding with the old boys club of the business world, where obtaining call girls for one's colleagues and getting blind-drunk was almost de rigeur. More than that, on a very banal level Hikaru was handsome, and the head of a large corporation, and had fast become - under Yuzuha's tutelage - the sort of man who ate others like him for breakfast. Kaoru had never wanted to think about it or ask about it, but, surely, people were probably throwing themselves at him for all kinds of ends, and he would have had many opportunities. He might have even thought that once for a practice run, perhaps to take off the edge on a lonely night or to learn how please Kaoru better, would not have been a crime. If that was the case, Kaoru was not sure he wanted to know. But still, sometimes people were careless on the topic of protection, and it was only too bad that he could not avoid asking directly for, sadly, no matter how many dresses he wore, his sex prevented him from making his brother wear a piece of latex as a matter of course before marriage. And while the doctor part of him was sure he could handle finding out that Hikaru's sexual resume had more than one bullet point, it was also the sort of thing that no one ever planned on hearing as a "civilian"…

"Hikaru, can I ask you something?" he ventured, squinting into his brother's eyes.

"Sure, ask me anything your heart desires, my lovely bride-to-be," his brother ran a hand up and down his forearm and lifted his hand to brush his lips against it.

"I don't want you to read too much into this, I just feel like I'd be a bad physician if I don't ask. I know we've been living apart and you have needs, so I just need to know - if you, um, end up coming inside of me, is there anything I need to be worried about? Not that it might hurt, obviously - that's to be expected, but you know - wait, whoa… Hikaru, what's wrong?!"

His brother had let go of his hand and turned away, and was visibly grimacing. His chin was twitching, his mouth had curled downward like it did whenever he was about to cry, and he was covering his eyes with his palm. His shoulders were shaking as well - and all of that had happened in the blink of an eye, before Kaoru was halfway through asking the question.

"Hikaru, are you okay? What is it? Was it something I said?" Kaoru jumped down from the kitchen island, throwing the dress over his shoulders and buttoning up haphazardly. He took his brother by the waist and hugged him, then let go and ushered him to the couch. Once there, he sat down beside him and rubbed a comforting hand up and down his shoulder as he waited for his crying to subside.

"I… I… I…" - the older twin sobbed.

Kaoru's hand on his shoulder slowed and his touch became more gentle as he leaned forward to catch Hikaru's eyes.

"I'm sorry, Kaoru… I slept with someone else… Or I tried to, anyway…"

Kaoru's hand on his shoulder stopped altogether and Hikaru looked up to find his brother staring at him, dumbfounded.

"What… happened…" Kaoru's voice ran dry of all inflection and feeling, but Hikaru caught the tail-end of the expression that was on his brother's face before he managed to slip on his mask of opacity. Kaoru had winced - physically winced, from head to toe - and knowing him, an expression like that was the tip of the iceberg that was everything he believed, stood for, and lived for going up in flames.

"I… I was an idiot." Hikaru's voice sounded hardly like his own as his lips formed the words. "It felt terrible, and was a terrible thing to do, and all I could think of was you… We both had too much to drink, and I was a dumbass."

He stopped and looked at Kaoru for some sign that he'd heard him, but the younger twin's face remained as still and illegible as ever - a version of his placid, listening-Zen face, but somehow sharper and more forbidding around the edges. Only his shoulders had begun to slump, as if his strength was slowly leaving him. It hurt to watch, and hurt even more by dint of the fact that that he, Hikaru, had caused the inner turmoil that the gesture signified. Hikaru reached for his brother's hand, but Kaoru moved it away.

"When..."

"Last weekend," Hikaru paused to stifle a sob, none-too-gracefully. "I wanted to tell you as soon as I got here, but you were so happy, and I was so happy to see you, and I already had the ring, and… I couldn't bring myself to ruin it." He buried his face in his hands, perhaps in vain hope that it would make him disappear. "It was with a tarento** who signed a modeling contract with us. Known sociopath, as it turned out. I found out she already has two boyfriends, and she got mad at me for not breaking up with you and going with her after it happened. I don't care for her - I never did. But it's still all my fault. It's not like she raped me."

(**minor celebrity or TV personality not known for any specific talent; roughly equivalent to "famous for being famous")

"So… Why..."

"I don't have a good answer for that, Kaoru." Hikaru looked at his hands, searching the ridges of his fingerprints in vain for he knew not what. Reliving the day made him feel, once again, like the world was crashing around him. "I told her I was with someone, but I guess I wanted to know what it would be like to talk to a girl… in a certain way." His voice began to break again, and he earnestly wished that the floor would swallow him up, the idiot and the pig that he was for even trying to justify it. He did not deserve to be sitting next to his brother - he did not even deserve to be breathing the same air. "I… I guess for a moment I lost sight of how wonderful you are," he said lamely. "I don't know how I could've done that… But when it had been going on for about a minute, I was like, shit, you're a dumbass, and then all I could think of was how much I wanted you instead, and how I could possibly do something like this to the only person I ever loved." The tears, bitter and angry and hopeless, had come back full-strength, and he could barely get the words through their onslaught. "I felt so disgusting I couldn't get it up anymore."

"I wonder if it was the disgust or the alcohol."

Hikaru heard Kaoru sniff a bit - the first hint at an emotion since the conversation started. The older twin stared at his hands, too afraid to look up.

"I'm sorry, Kaoru," he said dully, well aware of just how impotent the words sounded. "I am so, so sorry. I never want to touch anyone else again. I'm sorry that that's what it took to remind me how much you mean to me."

He waited, hoping against all odds that there would come an answer. But Kaoru was silent - very silent. It was the end - of course it was, who was he kidding? He could barely believe what he had done himself, much less hope to be forgiven, and he had tried to lock it up as far as he could as soon as he saw his brother again. After all, it had served - in a very twisted way - as an affirmation of his commitment, and when he saw his brother's face again he hoped they would be able to pick up where they left off without anyone being the wiser. And indeed, when he had finally officially asked Kaoru to marry him, after weeks of carrying around the ring and waiting for the right moment, he had never meant anything more earnestly in his life. But no matter how much he wanted to pretend that the moment with the tarento never happened, it HAD, and he had been a fool to think that Kaoru did not have the keys to his heart picked and would not find out eventially. And while Kaoru was kind, surely there were limits to his kindness - not that kindness was what he deserved.

When Hikaru finally looked up, his brother's eyes were, sure enough, still glazed over in a picture of perfect vacancy as if he were looking at a bizarre, somewhat annoying stranger.

"I'm… sorry," Hikaru repeated brokenly. He felt like he was falling and clawing in slow motion at the air, and nothing felt real anymore except that face, which looked at him without seeing.

"I understand that you're sorry," Kaoru said, almost too calmly, and got up. "But I need to be alone right now. I'm going out, if you don't mind. By myself."

Kaoru's look hurt more than his words, but Hikaru did not move to stop him. Indeed, he was almost completely debilitated. It felt like someone had opened his chest and was ripping his heart slowly into shreds.

"I can leave," he said, willing back a new volley of tears, but doing a poor job of it. "I don't want to, but I can…"

"Don't be silly. You're my brother, I wouldn't kick you out." Kaoru's voice was stiff, and he disappeared into the bedroom, having stripped off the dress and flung is on the floor with a disdain. Hikaru heard the sound of metal sliding against metal and then some fumbling, but all that had truly stuck with him was the frosty note to the word "brother." Before long, Kaoru emerged wearing another dress from Shar's collection. This time, it was an aloha print of orange and white that was really geckos upon close inspection. He crossed the room without another word, and the lock of the door clicked behind him.

Hikaru let loose every expletive he had ever known or heard of and fell on his side, crushing his face into the cushions.

And then his pain turned to panic.

The moment Kaoru stepped out of the lobby of the building into the street, he would disappear - given that it was Waikiki - into a sea of tourists. Without his shock of red hair and wearing the Aloha print, Hikaru would not have a prayer of finding him. And Kaoru could go anywhere - he knew the city far better. If he took the next elevator right then, he might catch him, but what good would it do? Taking their altercation into the street, with witnesses, was unlikely to put Kaoru in the mood for a reconciliation. And yet, to sit and wait and do nothing was unthinkable. Reasonable and calm though he was when it came to OTHER people's crises, his brother had a history of maladaptive behavior that landed him in an eating disorder clinic at the age of 16. And the drinking - who knew how long THAT would stay under control? What if Kaoru did something reckless, like finally mix his two deadly hobbies?

That's it. The car. That would be the first thing to check for. If the Audi was still in its place, there was a limit to how far and how fast Kaoru could travel. That way, at least, Hikaru might gauge the likelihood of his brother being extracted from the wreckage off near some mountain road come morning.

Hikaru picked himself up off the couch, opened the refrigerator and the cupboard, poured several several shots of whiskey, and downed them in one gulp. He would need both the energy and the courage.


	15. Party's Over

Part 4: Party's Over

The car was indeed safely in its place in the basement garage, and Hikaru immediately judged that the next step would have to be to try and head Kaoru off at his other hobby. It could not have been more than ten minutes since he left - he therefore could not have gone far. He could, of course, have taken a cab, and that would complicate matters. But a quick word and a bribe for the door man confirmed that it was unlikely that he had, and Hikaru emerged into the busy street, plugging into his phone the search parameters that would pull up every watering hole in a one-mile radius. The sun was beginning to set, and bars would soon be doing brisk business as beach-goers returned from their daily bout of sun-worshipping. For a split second, he wondered if he should toss out anything that sounded too touristy - as anyone who lived in close proximity to Waikiki generally developed a dislike for out-of-towners. But still, it was not beyond Kaoru to break his own rules, given that it was not exactly an ordinary night, and he might be expecting to be followed. And so Hikaru decided to start with what was closest and work outwards.

As he raced from establishment to establishment, for the first time in a long time he thanked the powers that be that Kaoru was his twin. Asking bouncers and bartenders if they had seen him was as easy as slipping them a twenty and saying, "Looks like me, but with brown hair and in a dress." And while he did have to down a few drinks along the way, both for appearance's sake and to quell the thoughts of catastrophe, in the end it was a small price to pay, because he did end up finding him in, and in a place where he had almost despaired peering into the darkness of a half-lit victorian interior. Indeed, the place was an establishment known for its transvestite clientele, though Hikaru could not have known it by the looks of the place with leather-upholstered chairs, victorian candelabras, and a bar paneled with mahogany. It was deucedly dark, too, and he had almost thought he was wasting his time when he finally spotted the aloha dress at the far end of the bar, and the slender pale leg extending across the space between two stools to play footsie with its neighbor's.

Hikaru would have felt like losing his lunch if he wasn't so relieved. His second thought, of course, was one of amazement. His brother was the last person he would have expected to get back at him in such a laughably juvenile way. Kaoru, after all, had always been the one less given to insolence, immaturity, and insubordination. But then again, people often regressed in they face feelings they could not handle - and it may well have been that his brother was counting on getting caught, and the childish nature of the act was meant to send an ironic message…

"Kaoru!"

The younger twin spun around, and a demonstrative opacity fell over his features. The man beside him looked as nondescript as could be - vaguely handsome, well-built, and blond with a military haircut. Several empty shotglasses stood between them, along with scattered citrus rinds and a dish of salt, while two more glasses of tequila waited at the ready.

"Oh. Hello, brother," Kaoru said in English. He turned to the man next to him and shook his head, as if to indicate that no, there wouldn't be a problem.

Hikaru tried not to wince at the last word and brush it off, but was only marginally successful. He noticed that Kaoru still wore his ring, but on the wrong hand.

"Kaoru, why are you doing this?" He asked - in English as well - as he let his eyes scan - visibly - over the five-odd empty glasses and Kaoru's companion. The latter's hand had begun to move across the counter towards Kaoru's, the expression in his slightly cloudy eyes shifting from vague consternation to annoyance.

"Hikaru, I work 80-hour weeks," the younger twin replied acidly. Oddly enough, he was not slurring his speech in the slightest, although his voice had sprouted sharp angles. "I can get called in at any moment, even 3 a.m. on a Saturday, because some schizo's started coding. I didn't have the luxury of sleeping through school and still getting my degree like SOME people, and I still study every minute I can. I live off Waikiki, but I only see the beach from my window. I think I'm allowed."

Hikaru tried to ignore the jab - for it was true that many university students, even and perhaps especially at Todai and Ouran, did precious little studying after they got in, and many did literally sleep through classes. But what Kaoru also knew very well was that by the time he was a second-year Hikaru was already working nearly full-time helping Yuzuha, so if he fell asleep in class it was for an entirely different reason.

"Kaoru, I know you're in a bad place right now," Hikaru tried to reason, doing his best to keep himself from sounding desperate, "But will this solve anything? Will this make you feel any better?"

Kaoru turned away, and back to his glass.

"It's none of your business. You don't own me. I do what I feel like." He gave a derisive smirk. "I can even bring him home and force you to watch, so you'd better go away if you know what's good for you."

"You heard the lady. Leave," Kaoru's date spoke up, getting up with an attitude that bespoke his intent to drive the point home physically if Hikaru did not comply. "Why are you so concerned about what your sister does anyway? You tryin' to get your Lannister on?"

"I have no idea who the Lancasters are," said Hikaru mildly, "But the LADY, who is my dearest little sister, is an alcoholic, and you, sir, are enabling her."

"Hikaru, that's not true!" Kaoru wailed, "I am NOT an alcoholic!"

"Oh, so you're going to deny it?" Hikaru grabbed the glass from in front of his brother and downed what remained of it. "In and out of rehab for years - it's sad. In fact," Hikaru whipped out his wallet, suddenly catching a second wind - "Here's something for the tab," he slammed several bills on the counter in front of Kaoru's companion, the sum in clear excess of the price of the drinks. "And for your trouble, since you won't be getting any returns on your investment. Kaoru, let's go." He grabbed his brother's arm. "You're breaking everyone's heart with your drinking. Mom's, dad's, Ageha's, mine…."

"Oh, I'm breaking YOUR heart," Kaoru scoffed bitterly, wrenching his arm from Hikaru's grasp.

Hikaru stepped away. He could only hope that Kaoru was not coordinated enough to find the pressure spot under his ear again if he tried to touch him - the way he had found it on only one other occasion in his life that Hikaru hoped would never be repeated. The ring on the wrong hand still seared his heart, but the dress over the androgynous frame and the look of insolent denial seared even stronger. Suddenly, the five-odd drinks Hikaru had already had that night kicked him straight in the head. It did not matter that Kaoru knew a way to physically bring him to his knees. He would be faster than him. He would get Kaoru out of there. He would get him out if it was the last thing he did: out of the situation that was clearly not doing him any favors and out into the open, where he could hold him one last time and make him hear him out. Even if embarrassing him was what it took.

"That's it, you know what..."

"Hikaru, what are you?!-"

Before Kaoru could react - in fact, before ANYONE could react - Hikaru had seized his brother by the middle, swung him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, and was well on his way to the bar's exit.

"Put me down, you crazy fuck!-"

People had already begun to look their way a few minutes ago, but somebody being bodily carried out of the bar kicking and screaming was hard to ignore, and several menus and a saltshaker narrowly missed Hikaru in his progress.

"Yeah, put her down, dipshit!"

"Sexist pig!"

"Burn in hell, asshole!"

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

"Ye-a-ahh! Go for it! Woo!" - a lone Hikaru-supporter shouted, but was promptly booed down by other patrons.

By the time he was at the door, several people had gathered to block his path. Hikaru, however, was ready, and braced to part the waters with a smile and the understanding look of a Model Citizen.

"My sister's an alcoholic," he gestured to Kaoru, who had ceased flailing and sagged over his shoulder, whimpering and folded in two. "Trust me," he added gravely, "I don't want trouble any more than you do."

Those gathered murmured uncertainly, but moved aside to let him pass. Once the two of them were outside, Kaoru took up struggling again, and by that point Hikaru's surge of energy was running out, so he had no choice put to him down.

"Hikaru, you're crazy!" Kaoru pushed him in the chest as soon as he was right side up, though the shove turned out much less violent than he had hoped. "Absolutely insane!"

Kaoru was clearly struggling to steady his voice, to keep those passing from turning their heads. "What, do you think I'm going to change my mind now that you've humiliated me and I can never go back in there again?"

"Well, GOOD," Hikaru snapped back almost in spite of himself, rubbing the center of his chest where Kaoru hit him. "One less place you can drink yourself to an early grave."

"Miss, is this man bothering you?"

The brothers broke eye contact to find they had attracted the attention of some passers-by and a police officer, and several more people were craning their necks as they continued to walk.

"This man," laughed Kaoru derisively, "Is my brother, and he's been bothering me from day one." Taking advantage of the attention, he took a few deliberate steps away, sandals slapping against the pavement.

The older twin cast a smile as genuine as he could muster over the knot of people. "She's had a little too much to drink," he said. "And she really is my sister. We'll be fine. I'll get her home."

The police officer - a native Hawaiian with a build like a choice Yukon potato - cast a stern look at Hikaru and took a step back, turning off his flashlight.

"You do that. And I don't wanna see any more fighting in the street." He waved a hand at those standing around to that move along. "Alright, party's over, everybody!"

The words had the desired effect and the gaggle of onlookers began to dissipate. Kaoru began walking away, and Hikaru caught up with him several storefronts later.

"Kaoru, please…"

Kaoru did not look at him.

"I said I don't want to be around you right now," he said, his voice breaking. "What's so hard to understand about that?" He was crying messily now, snot and saliva mixing with tears as they ran down his chin.

Hikaru grabbed his brother's wrists and Kaoru stopped, looking defiantly down.

"Kaoru… I know you don't want to be around me right now. But please, just let me say one thing before I go." He pulled his twin into a tight hug and pressed his face into his hair, willing back tears. His heart felt like it was being vivisected again.

Kaoru did not respond, but he did not try to fight him either, so the older twin steered them both into an alcove by an entrance to a shopping gallery, where they would be farther away from the streams of people filling the street. He waited for Kaoru's sobs to slow before he spoke.

"I'm not going to give up on you, Kaoru," he said quietly. "You can dump me. You can pretend we never happened. You can humiliate me by dating someone else and rubbing it in my face. I deserve it. But I won't stop being in love with you, and I won't stop putting you first. I'll spend every day trying to make up for what I did to you. Even if I'm not in your life, even if we can never be together, I'll be looking out for you every single day."

He waited for an answer, still holding Kaoru against him.

"Hikaru, I'm not ready to have this conversation," the younger twin said finally. His voice no longer broke with every word - rather, it sounded sullen and weary. He was still looking down, and seemed about to say something else when his phone went off, playing the opening lyrics to "Harder, better, faster, stronger."

"Let me go. That's work."

Hikaru unclasped his hands in mild surprise. "I thought you weren't on call today."

"I'm not. But I still need to pick up. It might still be important." The younger twin took a breath and straightened his shoulders before sliding his finger across the phone screen. "Yes, hello… Speaking…" His voice snapped into a neutral, energetic tone - if still a little hollow - and he took several steps away from Hikaru with a look that commanded that he neither follow nor attempt to eavesdrop.

Hikaru slumped against the wall, and listened to the snippets of words from Kaoru's side of the conversation. But he could not piece them together into anything that made sense, and before two minutes were up Kaoru hung up the phone with a bitter sigh.

"You could've saved yourself the trouble" - his words had a note of acid again. "Nothing would've happened tonight anyway, and you know why? Because THIS happened" - he brandished the phone in Hikaru's face. "Because this ALWAYS happens. Because I have a job, and fucking pretty protegees is not part of the job description!"

"Wait, you're going to work now?" Hikaru gasped, incredulous. "You're wearing a dress! I thought they all think of you as a guy… And you're drunk!"

Kaoru scoffed and walked back into the street, with Hikaru close at his heels, and raised a hand to hail a taxi.

"I can change before anyone important sees me," he replied. "And it doesn't matter if I'm a little drunk - I'm not a friggin' heart surgeon."

The dress - along with a skirt positioned to reveal more leg than it normally did - made short work of getting a cab to pull over. Hikaru reached for the door handle almost instinctively, but Kaoru slapped his hand away.

"Go home, Hikaru. I'm not a child," he spat as he got in, and Hikaru saw his shoulders shaking. "I can take care of myself, and I want you to go home and stop following me - IF that means anything."

Hikaru watched the cab drive away, its tail lights blending into the ballet of the busy boulevard, and wanted to cry. It did not matter who was watching, or what they would think. He had had him, he had had it all, but he had lost him. He could follow him again, but what would be the point? Kaoru was worse than dead: he'd look back at him with those vacant eyes and Hikaru would feel his soul being ripped apart again. He had not only killed his brother after he'd sworn to protect him - he had tarnished everything they had with one thoughtless act. He saw that much in Kaoru's face every time he looked at him.

Hikaru started walking, looking only straight ahead, in vague hope of finding a bridge or an overpass to jump from. If Honolulu had a subway, that might have made things easy. Many Japanese businessmen died just that way, by jumping in front of a train, and Hikaru would have become a statistic. Perhaps he could simply wade into the ocean and walk or swim until he couldn't anymore. Or hike up to a mountain outlook and jump from there. But then he imagined the funeral. Would Kaoru cry? Would mom, dad, and Ageha? What a silly question - of course, they all would. Because in death all was forgiven. But he did not deserve forgiveness, and he had caused Kaoru enough pain.

No, he would walk out of his life, quietly - if that was what Kaoru wanted. He would be true to his word, watching over Kaoru from afar, but he would never again do anything to interfere with his happiness. In fact, it seemed Kaoru had a pattern when it came to the things he enjoyed - they were all just a hair's breadth away from offing him. At one time, he had developed a perverse liking for eating and throwing up to quell his anxiety about their love affair. Fast cars - that went without saying. The medical profession - that was pure love-hate. And if Kaoru was now well-practiced in never drinking too much, it was only after having nursed himself through many a hangover.

And maybe he, Hikaru, was no exception. Maybe Kaoru loved him because it meant flirting with heartbreak - after all, they WERE very different, the stakes were higher than for other couples, and many people in their shoes would have folded long ago. Maybe Kaoru was changing and had realized that enough was enough - that there were certain types of pain he would not stand for. Hikaru himself might not have had the strength to draw the line, but if Kaoru came back and told him to go packing he would not fight it. Over many years they had become one, and he could not imagine there being anyone else for him, so breaking it off would make life would lose all color and meaning. But that was alright. Many people lived like that - for others, not as people but as functions carrying out a duty. There were far too many obligations still left for him in the world, but nothing prevented him from committing spiritual suicide.

His feet carried him on autopilot back to Kaoru's condo, and he walked in, neglecting to turn on the lights. The city shone on from behind the vertical blinds, closed halfway, and the dress with the butterflies still lay in a heap where Kaoru had thrown it. Hikaru felt his heart break for the umpteenth time, and he stooped down to pick it up, crumbling the silk in his hands. Kaoru would probably not want it anymore - he had a tendency to draw strong ties between physical objects and lived experience.

And yet, a small, sad part of Hikaru still wanted nothing more than to touch Kaoru right then. Touching was so simple, and had so often been just the thing to make it all better. He got up and walked over to the couch to lay on it, pulling his knees to his chest and turning his head to the wall. He wrapped the dress around his neck and cushioned the silk against his cheek, letting his thoughts rewind to the moment when he undid the buttons one by one. If he tried hard enough, he wondered, could he succeed in imagining that the afternoon and evening been a dream? Normally he was a realist and did not go in for such nonsense, but when it came to matters of the heart, even realists needed some self-delusion to get through the night. His last thought was that if he cried in his sleep the tears would ruin the the pattern, but at that point it probably did not matter anymore.


	16. The Test Drive

Part 5: The Test-Drive

It was just as dark, and the city shone just as bright through the half-closed blinds when Hikaru opened his eyes to find Kaoru perched at the head of the couch, looking down at him and gently stroking his shoulder. Hikaru's watch-arm was twisted under his head and had fallen asleep, and he could not see what time it was.

"Hey."

The angular abrasiveness was gone from Kaoru's voice, and it was once again what Hikaru was used to - soft, slightly husky, and very gentle. The younger twin had also washed off his eyeshadow, and was wearing a dark-colored polo shirt and khaki pants. Hikaru blinked his eyes, struggling to figure out whether what he saw was an apparition.

"Kaoru? Is that you?"

"Yes, Hikaru." The older twin made a move to get up, but Kaoru indicated that he should stay down, and reached for a pillow to put under his head. "It's me. Are you okay? I'm sorry about earlier."

"YOU'RE sorry?!" Hikaru gasped, his voice jumping several decibels in surprise.

"Well, I did say you were a crazy fuck, among other things." Kaoru chuckled. "And I tried to give you a taste of your own medicine, though that was bad decision to the extreme - I'll be the first to admit that."

"But- but what about what I did…?!"

"That's okay, I forgive you," said the younger twin, serene as could be. "And I still want to be with you." He held up his hand to show that his ring, back on the correct finger.

"But- but- but- but- WHY?! HOW?! I can't even forgive myself!"

Kaoru put a finger on his lips, and ran his other hand up and down his brother's arm.

Hikaru rubbed the side of his head, which was spinning from shock. After a quarter-century, Kaoru still had a way of surprising him.

"Did something… happen at work?" he wondered dazedly, still struggling to wrap his brain around the situation.

"Nothing happened at work." The older twin saw Kaoru smile, though the rest of his features were in shadow. "Except one of our countrymen with delusions about all U.S. doctors being military operatives. That's why they asked me to come in. They'd tried everything else, and I was trained in Japan, so I knew a few things that got me on his side. You know, it's funny," he added, looking up at the ceiling with a laugh, "Actually giving the patient what they want is always the last thing that crosses their minds."

The younger twin cast his eyes over the room, pensive.

"But anyway. The reason I forgive you is because it's not what you did, it's how you handled it. You didn't try to justify it in lame ways, and you didn't try to play down its significance. And while you still appear to have problems with boundaries and following simple directions" - he chuckled again - "In the end you told me how you felt and gave me a choice. I honestly didn't expect that."

"But… I broke you. I SAW YOU break with my own eyes. Why do you trust me?"

"I'm stronger than you think, Hikaru. You may think I'm all heart, but at the end of the day I have no rational reason to disbelieve you. After all, if you hadn't hated it, would you really have confessed that quickly? Sometimes you need to have someone else to realize what you've got. It's not a nice thought, but it makes sense."

"Oh, Kaoru, you're a saint…" Hikaru's mind was still working double-time to process what he was hearing, but it felt, unmistakeably, like his heart had been made whole again, and he reached for his brother almost instinctively, the dress still wrapped around his neck.

"Nah, I'm no saint," said Kaoru, returning the hug. "Just because I forgive you doesn't mean my memory's been erased, and needless to say if this happens again I won't be so understanding. Now let's get to bed."

"I can sleep here," Hikaru said, hastily bunching up the pillow under his head as he pulled away.

"Nonsense, you'll never be comfortable here…"

"You WANT a cheating schmuck in your bed?"

"We're past that now, Hikaru, so stop insulting yourself. Besides," he said, standing up and offering a hand, "I might want to finish what we started."

"You'd WANT that?!" gasped Hikaru, growing more incredulous by the moment, even as he untangled the dress from his neck and followed Kaoru at a respectful distance to the bedroom.

"M-aybe," Kaoru threw a small smile over his shoulder. He paused at the side of the bed and started to take off his shirt. The sight of his brother's shoulder blades thrown into sharp relief by the neon lights made Hikaru's heart quiver. "Though I guess I never really got to the heart of the matter," Kaoru added, folding the shirt and laying it neatly atop the dresser. "Did you use a rubber with that tarento, or?…"

"You know… I don't remember," replied Hikaru as he slumped against the side of the headboard, afraid to come near Kaoru in case it really was too good to be true.

"Well, then I guess we'll be using this." Kaoru had undone his pants and extracted something from the dresser, tossing it at Hikaru. The older twin caught it, and saw that it was packet of condoms and a lube dispenser. "You'll be using that with me until you get yourself tested for every STI in the book and I have the results in my hand. And for God's sake check in with her in a couple of weeks - you CAN get pregnant from precum." **

(**Yes, yes, yes - Kaoru's absolutely right, you can! So remember to wrap it up, kids. :P This has been a public service announcement from your friendly neighborhood fanfic writer / Spiderman.)

The younger twin's voice was suddenly very businesslike - almost chipper. TOO chipper. Dear God - thought Hikaru - either he really is a far better person than I thought, or he's reached a new stage of denial and is on some sort of downward spiral. A horde of terrible thoughts stampeded through Hikaru's head. Nothing might have happened at work, but what about after work? Was G.I. Joe from the bar perhaps waiting in the hallway, ready to make him watch as he had his way with Kaoru? Had Kaoru been drinking again - or had he used a stray prescription pad at work to get his hands on some uppers? As far as he could tell Kaoru did not smell of alcohol, but that was really the extent of it…

Kaoru had slipped under the covers, and pulled them to his chin contentedly, smiling. The older twin noticed that he had removed his dark-colored contacts, and the city lights skipped brightly over his pale amber irises.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" said the younger brother. "You're not going to sleep on the floor, are you? What kind of host would that make me? Come - it's warm and soft over here."

"Alright, Kaoru," said the older twin hesitantly. "I guess if I didn't know better I'd think work was an aphrodisiac for you…"

"Well," Kaoru said, laughing, "It's not strictly speaking true that I get off on it, but it does help me take a step back and get out of my head once in a while. Besides, I said 'maybe'. That means no promises, just hugs."

Hikaru placed the items back in their bag and put them carefully on the bedside table. His heart broke a little to think that his first real time with the person he loved most might resemble a seedy hookup, a piece of latex between them. But if that were to be the case, he was the one to blame, so he was in no position to be choosing. His hands fumbled with buttons as he took off his suit, by now thoroughly rumpled and missing a tie for many hours. Once his pants were undone, he let them fall where he stood and stepped out of them, climbing into bed with Kaoru - who promptly pulled him into a hug.

Hikaru lay stiffly for a few moments, but as Kaoru continued to hold him, he let himself run his hand, tentatively, over his shoulder blades, whose delicate beauty had made his heart sing only a little while earlier. He then ran it down his side and to his hip, but stopped just short of the elastic of his boxers. Kaoru's skin was still warm from the activity of the night, and soft stirrings had already begun to form down the older twin's spine as he imagined Kaoru under him - or over him. But he willed them away. He did not deserve to be enjoying his brother's body this way. Even if Kaoru did not mind, he would not allow himself.

"Brother, would you have done anything with G.I. Joe in that bar?" He asked after a moment, hoping the answer would make him feel as terrible as he deserved. "Assuming he knew what he was getting, of course."

Kaoru gave the matter some thought before he answered.

"You know, I cannot say," he replied. "He knew what he was getting, that's for sure. That place is a tranny bar, after all."

"No way, THAT place?"

"Yeah," Kaoru chuckled at Hikaru's bewildered look. "Not every tranny bar is a wild disco kingdom. But I think the real reason I did it was to try and channel what you were feeling when you were drunk and in a situation conducive to that kind of thing. I don't think anything would've come of it, but I thought that if I found myself able to relate, I might be able to forgive you."

Rats. He had come so close to feeling the exploding in his chest as he imagined his brother - in that shirt-dress that made him look like a girl of twelve - selling his virginity for a few tequilas in some unisex bathroom. But no, Kaoru had to go and ruin it all with the empathy angle. And - oh dear God, no - the gentleness of Kaoru's voice and the softness of his touch was already spreading in calming, pleasant eddies.

"Kaoru, how did you feel when you found out about what I did?"

"Oh." Kaoru took his hand away and looked, fixedly, at his ring-finger. "Well, to be honest" - his voice turned jauntily matter-of-fact again - "Mostly I just felt like an idiot. You always think you're different. You hear about these things, but you never think they will happen to you. I guess all I really wanted to do right then was to hide under the covers and fall asleep forever."

Ow.

Oww. Oww. Oww.

Jackpot.

For the last few hours, Hikaru had been too concerned that Kaoru would do something stupid, and feeling far too desperate and angry at himself to think one simple thought: "Poor Kaoru." Which only confirmed that he was scum: he knew he had hurt him, but had he bothered to empathize, to find out just how deeply? He'd been so busy trying to bring Kaoru back and that he never thought to try and imagine what might have moved his brother to run off in the first place. Sure, Kaoru's behavior may have seemed silly and maladaptive and hard to understand, but who was he to judge, really? Maybe the first thing he said to Kaoru ought to have been, "How do you feel? What do you need?" - instead of repeating "I'm sorry" like a broken record.

"I'll burn that into my memory," he said, gathering his brother into a tight hug and burying his face into his shoulder. "I never want to make you feel that way again." He pulled away and smiled, a little sadly, as he looked into his, the electric stars of the city dancing over their surface. "Sometimes I put the cart before the horse, and care too much about what you do instead of why you do it."

"Maybe that's true," Kaoru answered, looking up at him. "But that's okay. For instance, I'm glad you came to rescue me. Sometimes I'm just like you" - he chuckled - "I don't think things through all the way."

Before Hikaru's thoughts could shoot back to a masochistic image of Kaoru in his dress entwined with G.I. Joe on the bed of a love hotel, his brother had reached up and kissed him on the mouth - a single slow, savory kiss that turned into a long series. The pain Hikaru had sought earlier began to percolate through his skin, and soon all that was left was a sense of fragility, as if he would start crying at any moment. Kaoru ran his hands over his back and into his hair as he shifted his legs and hips so they were molded against each other. For a moment, Hikaru wanted to do nothing else - just to lie there, feeling Kaoru - his skin warm and soft, his flesh tight. Come to think of it, that was exactly how Kaoru was: gentle on the outside and strong, a veritable Phoenix, on the inside. Not that this was any excuse not to treasure him.

"Well, I'm happy you came back," Hikaru said after a long pause, his lips against his brother's. "My rescue efforts weren't all that well thought out either, but I was really hoping you'd come back."

Kaoru pulled back just long enough to plant two small, light kisses on his cheeks, as French people did when they said hello.

"Hikaru, you silly…" he giggled, "Why would I not come back? I live here."

"I know," said Hikaru. "But I thought you might have gotten a hotel or something and stayed there until I was due to leave. Maybe gotten someone else to come for your stuff."

"True," said Kaoru, lying back against the pillow. "I guess I could've. But you're my Hikaru," he propped himself up on his elbow again. "Even if I wanted nothing more to do with you, you deserve better than that."

The older twin felt his eyes melt as he took in Kaoru's winsome expression, and reached out to draw a knuckle down his cheekbone - a familiar path that ended at his chin and made him feel fifteen again: young, protective, and primal.

"Yes." He smiled. "I'm your Hikaru, and you're my Kaoru. And I only regret not saving myself for you. You deserve better than that, too."

"That's okay, Hikaru. We're still going to have a good first time. No one can take that away from us." Even in the darkness, Hikaru saw a small blush rise to his brother's cheek as his lips curled into a wider smile. Kaoru had always had a passionate nature - it just took pushing the right buttons to get his pulse to flutter as it did right then. "In fact, it might even make up for all the other bad things that happened tonight."

The words, though shy and roundabout like everything a sober Kaoru ever said about bedtime fun, sent an electric shock down Hikaru's spine, and he pulled Kaoru into a tight hug again, running his hands down his torso more insistently as he fought back the urge to simply pull down his boxers, spread his legs, and deliver the 10,000-odd volts that had been collecting inside him for months if not years. It took all he had to reign himself in, and channel what he could into a hungry kiss on his brother's lips. Their limbs entwined again, and Hikaru draped his leg over his brother's hips, hazarding to let him feel just how much he ached for him. Kaoru's body had grown warmer, and he arched his body into Hikaru's as his fingers balled into his back. Hikaru drew a ragged breath.

"Do you want to? Now?" He broke the kiss just long enough to whisper the words - his lips less than a hair's breadth away. His hands wanted nothing more than to leave his fingerprints, but he willed himself instead to reach for the objects on the bedside table to communicate exactly what he meant.

"Yes, Hikaru."

The younger twin's voice was gentle - without pretense or fear or put-on emotion. Yes, Hikaru. As simple as that - and the purest, most beautiful green light anyone could hope for.

"Then maybe you should do the driving," Hikaru whispered in Kaoru's ear, pulling back and fighting to slow the urgency of his breathing. "I heard it's easier for a first-time uke to be on top. That way you can be in charge of speed."

Kaoru looked a touch lost as Hikaru pulled away to prop himself back on two pillows against the headboard, but only for a moment. Hikaru began to pull on a certain piece of latex, and the spark returned to the younger brother's eyes.

"Well, that I can definitely do," he purred, flicking his fingers down his brother's abdomen. "But you'd better make sure you have a full tank before we start."

He crouched over Hikaru, running his lips first down his bother's clavicle, then down the middle of his chest, then further down still.

"Mhmm, looks good. Nice gearshift, too" - he rolled the words sensuously over in his mouth. Hikaru could not help but toss his head back and let loose something halfway between a sign and a groan. "I like lots of power under me. We might need to start slow, but you know how much I like it fast. So I hope you give me all you've got."

Kaoru straightened and pulled away, letting the sheet fall back from his body, and the glow of the lights outside, together with the moonlight, washed the skin from his shoulders to his hips in an iridescent glow.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" The older twin chuckled, fixing his eyes squarely on his brother's face to keep himself in low gear while there was no one in the driver's seat. The younger twin seemed to have become suddenly aware of his nudity and grew shy, crossing his arms over his abdomen."Take me for a spin. You have to try before you buy, right?"

Kaoru in the moonlight, nude and flirting and *wanting* him in spite of it all - though still as shy as ever - was so adorable it was almost too much. Even after all the times Hikaru had played the scenario out in his mind, he could scarcely believe it was coming to fruition.

"Maybe you need a little help." He sat up and took Kaoru by the hands, pulling him in to lie on top of him. "How about I throw some heated seats into the deal? Or a heated steering wheel." He ran his hand over the curve of Kaoru's bottom, dispensed a bit of lube, and began to massage around the proper area. His lips kept Kaoru's busy, and before long he started to feel the younger twin's muscles unclench just about everywhere.

"Better?"

Kaoru nodded.

"Okay, then I'm ready when you are. And you can stop at any time if you can't handle it. Don't worry about me."

They kissed again, and when Kaoru pulled away the mischievous gleam in his eyes was back.

"Who says I won't be able to handle it?" he whispered. "You need to have a little more faith in me, brother."

That much, Hikaru had to admit, was accurate. Kaoru had proven himself capable of far more than anyone expected over the last ten years, and continued to do so every day.

"I know, Kaoru. But I can't help being worried."

"And I wouldn't have it any other way, Hikaru. You're my big brother after all."

The twins linked hands, and Kaoru sat up, straddling Hikaru's middle as the latter reclined halfway against the headboard. The older twin watched his brother's face as he slowly applied lube and lowered his hips to envelop him. As he did so, he saw his life flashing before his eyes. Everything he had done with Kaoru, everything they had been together. Every smile, every playful argument, every night - both long and short - and every adventure. It was hard to believe that there was still a thing in the world that they hadn't done together. But it was doubly hard to believe that after it had come so close to being the end, it was only the beginning. Yes, it was most certainly the beginning. All his senses felt like they had been cranked up to full power and suddenly, he noticed things he had never seen before. In addition to the warmth of their union between his legs, he saw way Kaoru's left eyebrow ended farther to the side than his left, and the few millimeters of pale red roots that showed in his hair, and the way a sweet scent of talcum powder clung to his skin together with the heat - perhaps a deodorant, or something he had brought with him from work. And then he heard someone slide open the balcony door in a condo not too far away, and caught sight of the pale purple pattern that the lights left on Kaoru's legs.

Kaoru's progress was indeed slow, and Hikaru watched a spasm run over his features every few seconds as he caught a breath and froze, squeezing his hands - only to take a deep breath in and out, straighten his shoulders, relax his face, and continue. The wincing made Hikaru wince as well, and a small flutter of guilt would stir in him every time he did so. It hurt to be cheated on, and it hurt to be penetrated - it seemed he couldn't avoid hurting Kaoru, could he? But every time Kaoru opened his eyes he would smile as if to say, "it's okay," and Hikaru would feel anything but worthy of this beautiful creature all over again.

Before long, Kaoru had stopped wincing altogether, and started to move up and down - never too far, and slowly and smoothly. In spite of it all, Kaoru realized, he LIKED the thing he had been dreading for so long. After all, although it had hurt, unlike every other time they did not have to do a thing extra to feed the fire in his loins. In fact, it felt almost too good, and he worried that their ride would end before five minutes were over. And Hikaru seemed to love it as well, given the way he stared into his eyes as if he was all that existed, and the way his heels and fingers ceased to dig into the mattress when Kaoru made it clear the worst was over.

Yes, that's it, Hikaru. Relax - Kaoru thought. And don't worry about me. After all, pain is inevitable. Suffering is a choice.

…

The brothers woke basking in the morning sunshine, at almost the same time. The sky, even through the half-opened blinds, was cloudless. It could have been eight a.m., or well after the noon hour, but Hikaru decided he did not care to know the time.

"Morning, my love." He tightened his arms around his brother, as they had fallen asleep entwined, and ran his hand down his back to pinch a butt-cheek. "How's that sweet ass?"

"Mhm, good," mumbled Kaoru. Normally, Hikaru was the one who needed to be jostled awake and routinely spent about forty minutes in the moaning and groaning, but that day it was the other way around. "It enjoyed making a new friend last night."

"Good. My - uh - gearshift enjoyed making a new friend as well." Hikaru smiled at the small angle of beauty framed by his elbow and kissed up Kaoru's neck and jaw. "Let's hope they can become more than friends in the future." He tried to kiss Kaoru's mouth, but the younger twin pulled away.

"Not now, Hikaru, my breath smells like something crawled down my throat and died…"

"Oh, come on, Kaoru, really? We got as close as two people can get last night, and you're worried about what your breath smells like?"

But Kaoru was already gone, padding off to the bathroom. Hikaru collapsed into his pillow with a groan.

Two minutes later, though, the younger Hitachiin had wrapped a towel around his hips and was giving his teeth foamy once-over when Hikaru appeared behind him and put his head on his shoulder so the two made eye contact in the mirror.

"So what do you want to do today?" he asked, winking. "Lady's choice."

"I dunno." Kaoru paused in his furious scouring campaign, and Hikaru caught the dribble of toothpaste running down his chin. "What are our options?"

"Well! Since you say you normally have no life, I think you deserve an epic Saturday. Ideally, we can even film it, and call it Kaoru Hitachi's day off. We could start it off with a repeat performance of last night in that bed over there. Then we could bake on Waikiki beach for a while, so you no longer have to say you only get to see it from your window. And then we can go shopping on the strip for designer stuff we don't need. I can bust out one of those ninja credit cards that mandates them to shut down the entire store so it's just us in there…"

"Yeah, haha. I don't know about that." Kaoru had spit out his toothpaste and filled the water glass to rinse. "If we accidentally come near one of mom's boutiques and someone recognizes us, we'll get mobbed. It might be good for business, but you might to have to spend all day signing autographs while I stand there in sunglasses and a pasted-on smile as your anonymous girlfriend, hoping no one will recognize me. And then mom will kill us."

Yuzuha was fanatically devoted to controlling her family's media exposure - an obsession that was only appropriate in light of Hikaru's plans to marry Kaoru under his secret identity and keep his "wife" out of the public eye.

"True. I don't really feel much like working today - or getting killed."

"Let's go to the North Shore. There's a beach on the way to Waimeia that's got sea turtles. You can see them from three feet away. And the organic food stands on the way are to die for, even though they don't serve alcohol." Kaoru took a drag from his glass, and made a face in the mirror.

"Cool. I like turtles." Hikaru smiled and planted a soft butterfly kiss on his brother's shoulder where there were a few freckles, barely darker than his skin. "Now where's that kiss, Kaoru? We've been awake for an entire ten minutes and you haven't kissed me once. What kind of a fiance are you anyway?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A-a-and, that's it, guys. Unless anyone wants to hear what happened with that Tarento. I actually sort of have an idea on that point, so if there's any interest I might reopen this, but I think this is also a good place to stop.
> 
> PS: One interesting thing I realized as I edited these last few chapters written over the summer is that my writing voice - and standards - have actually changed a lot even over the course of a few short months. Go figure, right? Sometimes I wonder if I should go back to my earlier work and try to edit it, but… No. Not now, anyway.


	17. The Edge of the World

"Kaoru," said the attending** - a wispy man in his mid-thirties named Ryan Warner. An odd yet refreshing change from Japan was that in America, not only could you put "other" when asked about gender, but everyone called each other by their first names, with only the most senior staff preferring their surnames and the title "doctor." "You know why you're here, don't you?"

(**senior physician who is on the permanent faculty of a hospital - as opposed to a resident, who is a trainee on contract for a few years).

Kaoru was a good psychiatrist, and a very good resident. From the first, he had given his all, and gone above and beyond, and was kind and helped nearly everyone. By his third year, he had become so much the "go-to guy" that he was awarded the title of Chief Resident, along with more responsibility, a pay raise, and the right to represent the trainees before the administration.

Kaoru nodded, with a sigh. Indeed, he knew exactly why he was there.

"You know I've always been very impressed with you, and I've always relied on you," said Ryan, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his head. "Which is why I'm worried. These last few weeks, you've been behind on your charts, and when you do turn them in they're far from the quality I'm used to seeing from you. And on top of that, you're coming in late, you always look underslept and haggard, and half the time if doesn't seem like you're really even here. In fact, I'm not the only one who's noticed."

Kaoru hung his head. From the moment Ryan began speaking, he had first felt his knees turn to jelly and his stomach begin to churn. He tried, desperately, to think of whether he might have made some mistake, like giving someone the wrong medication or the wrong dose to disastrous effect. But no, he could not remember - though, to be fair, Ryan was right, his mind really had been in a fog, and most days he had been getting through work on a wing and a prayer.

"Impairment and burnout are things a lot of doctors experience" - he heard the attending's voice soften. Indeed, it sounded like Ryan was trying very hard to sound kind, and was very aware that Kaoru was a hair's breadth away from bolting out the door. "To be honest, when I was in school - which wasn't so long ago - they told us it's not a question of if, it's a question of when."

Kaoru chuckled ruefully, still looking at his shoes. He did not remember being taught anything like that in med school.

"So there's really no shame in it," Ryan continued, trying to catch Kaoru's eyes. "In fact, we have resources in place to help in just such situation."

Kaoru sighed again, still too embarrassed to make eye contact. Ryan was very astute, and the two had worked closely together on many occasions, which was perhaps the reason he had noticed before any kind of disaster struck. Kaoru had only hoped that his prior high standards meant that even despite the sleepless nights, the constant checking of his phone, the long bathroom breaks and the bottle of wine a day he would still somehow get by. But it seemed he had overreached himself.

"Will I lose my job?" he asked in a hollow voice.

Ah. Of course - Ryan thought. He had almost forgotten. Kaoru was not a U.S. citizen, and his stay was probably contingent on his employment.

"No," he replied with a smile. "In all honesty, you CAN'T lose your job - not unless you voluntarily resign, or do something grossly inappropriate. What we usually do instead is we arrange a few weeks' leave. People take breaks all the time, and we do have a plan in place for that. As far as salary goes of course, you'll be getting a bit less than your base pay and you won't be able to accrue vacation time, but -"

"N-no, that's alright. I've… got a bit of a cushion."

"Alright, then." Ryan nodded. Kaoru was still avoiding looking directly at him, and it looked like his cheeks had turned very red. If Ryan did not know better, he would have thought that the chief resident was on the verge of tears.

"You should sit down, Kaoru," he said, getting up and motioning him over to a couch at right angles to his desk. Once Kaoru was seated, he lowered himself down opposite him into an armchair, and looked at the younger man in a way he hoped was reminiscent of a friend and not an authority figure.

"This isn't uncommon, Kaoru - and people do get back on their feet and come back good as new. Marie, the other month, had thyroid surgery, remember?"

Kaoru was silent.

"Look," Ryan said. "What we say in this room right now is just between you and me. But I think I will be able to help you better if I know more about what's going on."

Ryan held his breath, and waited, but his words had no effect and he had to physically restrain himself from biting his lips. Despite their generally good rapport and Kaoru's sunny disposition, the latter had always been a little hard to read, which Ryan had initially chalked up to cultural differences. At the moment, thanks to Kaoru's nurse-fanclub, he knew that the chief was recently engaged - and had initially wondered if it was was simply a matter of distracted on account of THAT. But for one in the throes of domestic bliss, Kaoru had looked too sullen - and, on a few occasions, too hungover. His other thought was that Kaoru was pushing himself too hard and breaking under the pressure, but the question was - why now?

"Tell me," he tried again, "Is what's been happening - new?"

Kaoru sat still for a few moment, staring at the space between them, and then leaned forward and buried his face in his hands with a barely perceptible shake of the head.

…

Kaoru sat on a bench. Making his way down the halls, he had felt like the walls were crashing down behind him. Outside, the sky was a cloudless azure and the palms swayed back and forth in the breeze, and only after a few moments of sitting with his face in his hands did Kaoru realize that he still had his white coat on. He hastily ripped it off, balling it up and stuffing it in his bag so the senior citizens waiting for rides on the circle driveway of the hospital would not see it.

Nothing Ryan could have said could convince him that he had not failed - and that the way things ended up would not be a blemish on his career. Marie had had her thyroid surgery, yes, and was back after a month doing just as well as before. But a thyroid was one thing and a fucked to hell brain chemistry was another. It did not even matter that the psych department at their sister hospital had a program for doctors who had run into trouble in the line of duty, and that all he had to do was complete a course of therapy there before coming back. He knew better than anybody that psych treatments were as often hits as they were misses. So it was quite possible he would never be able to come back, and things would never be the same again. It was even possible that the last ten years had been an illusion, and that he had never recovered in the first place.

Because everything had been fine, really, until the day Hikaru left after that fateful visit. When his brother was physically there, and Kaoru had seen his face, and how desperate and in love he looked, it had moved him to tears. But the moment Hikaru disappeared past security at the airport, it was as if a giant, black hole had opened up inside him. Indeed, he was barely able to make it home without causing a crash, and when he parked his hands were still shaking.

The voices were back - or his own voice, rather. Laughing at himself and telling himself that he was a fool, that Hikaru had only said the right thing to placate him, and would get right back to it the moment he set foot in Narita. After all, his brother had always been the more devious one, and also the bigger coward.

He tried to tell himself that it did not matter. That he was an adult now, and had bigger fish to fry and a career to look after. Even if things did come to an end, or weren't what they seemed, a relationship was not the be-all and end-all. After all -

He tried to go through all the reasons, in his own mind, why it was ridiculous, and why he had no cause to disbelieve his brother. All the reasons that had made so much sense that night. But it was no use. The doubts were like hydras. The moment he cut off one head, ten others sprung up in its place, and before he had stumbled back to the condo, he was moving on autopilot, and knew what he had to do.

He started throwing open cupboards, and pulled out every ounce of food he had, prepared and not. He lined up all the casserole dishes, tupperware, and takeout boxes he had in the fridge, along with all the wine bottles. He then took out a fork, a glass, and chopsticks, opened up the first box, and began to eat. For the next hour, he ate and drank non-stop, hardly taking time to chew and mixing cake with udon noodles and tacos with spam sushi. He even drank nearly a whole bottle of wine, and by the end he felt duly awful. But at least there was a good - and tangible - reason to feel awful, and he would show that poncy old git Hikaru. He'd make him sorry if it was the last thing he did - and to that end, once nearly half of the food on hand was gone, he threw down the chopsticks and made his way to the bathroom, stripping his clothes off as he went.

He lived alone, so he did not need to hide it anymore. He turned on the shower, stepped in the tub, put his fingers down his throat, and the food up came easily, a mess of broccoli chunks, acid-soaked meat, and mangled noodles.

The shower somehow made it easier. Something about the hot water soothed him, and by the time fifteen minutes were up, he felt better, but not better enough. It still took two more rounds to even think about going to sleep, and once he did, with the help of three more glasses of wine, he rested only fitfully. In the morning, he woke to several messages from Hikaru that made him feel a little better - and like an idiot - but only for a moment. In the days that followed, he oscillated between checking his phone obsessively and turning it off, for no matter what Hikaru wrote, it was never good enough, or fast enough, and never would be. Not to plug up the hole. And Kaoru knew that much, and did not want to be the lover who became desperate, mopey, and clingy the moment there was a commitment hiccup. So he lived hour by hour, just waiting to get home to turn on his personal phone and - if there was nothing there - to wash down the images of Hikaru and where he might be with plenty of Cabernet. Indeed, that was what his life had become. Wake up. Go to work. Somehow make it through the day. Come home. Check calls. Try not to sound cheerless while relating his day's even to Hikaru, and then make some excuse as to why he could not talk face to face. Sit down. Drink. Watch the analog clock and wonder if it's broken because a minute should really not last that long. Vaguely register that the wine bottle is empty. Vomit. Watch the shadows creep across the floor and curse the light switch for being twenty feet away. Fall into a dreamless stupor. Rinse. Repeat.

Yes, it was no wonder that Ryan - and others - had noticed. Indeed, it would take an idiot NOT to notice, and the only one who hadn't was Hikaru himself, but only because when he came back two weeks later, at his usual time, Kaoru had scoured the bathroom with bleach, and taken out the bottles to be recycled, and subjected his mouth to at least five rounds of mouthwash before they proceeded to spend the next two days in bed not talking.

So perhaps he deserved being taken off his job after all. It was shameful, downright shameful, for a psychiatrist not to have his own mental health together, and, what's more, to have been so in denial about it for so long. And yet, it did not keep him from feeling like it was the end - like he was without a friend in the world, standing at the edge of the world. Which Hawaii was, in a way. The most geographically isolated chain of islands on the planet. A tropical backwater, if you will. If something like a typhoon hit, and there was not enough jet fuel, they would all be done for. Wiped clean off the face of the earth. And maybe that would be a good thing.

The tops of the palm trees swayed, and Kaoru's phone vibrated in his pocket. He ignored it. It was probably Hikaru - and if it wasn't, it did not matter. And indeed, if it were Hikaru, it was anything but a good time. When it came to Kaoru's chosen career, Hikaru downright idolized him, and was deaf to the younger twin's insistence that it did not take a God to fire a clay pot. It drove Kaoru distracted, but it hurt even more to disappoint him.

His pocket vibrated more insistently, suggesting that whoever it was had left a message. Kaoru sighed and pulled out the phone.

(1) message from Manchester Lesar - the home screen read.

Ah. Manny. Old friend. She had been calling and texting on and off for the last week or so, but he had archived her messages - as he did all the others, minus the ones from Hikaru - without reading. After all, if something was wrong he hardly thought he would be the one and only person in a position to help the daughter of the CEO of Haliburton, and, at any rate, he did not have the energy right then… He already had enough people to lie to on a daily basis. Of course, one the one hand, Manny might have understood. She had taken a year off in undergrad. But on the other hand -

A car pulled up, collecting a few of the senior citizens, and the cry of seagulls carried over from the shoreline. In Honolulu, one was never too far away from the beach. The phone vibrated again, and this time, it was his brother. Kaoru felt a slight twitch in his stomach when he saw, and at first he thought he might do better to simply let it ring out - one, two, three times - but on the fourth ring he sighed and slid his finger across the screen.

"Kaoru! Hey!" There was a delighted smile in Hikaru's voice.

Kaoru nodded, drawing a slightly raspy breath.

"Kaoru?" The enthusiasm in Hikaru's voice fell a notch. "Are you there?"

Kaoru took another breath, trying make less noise this time - which was just as well. Suddenly, he felt the pepper of tears in the back of his throat, and could not have spoken if he wanted to.

"Is everything okay?"

Kaoru was silent. He had squeezed his eyes shut and was pressing his fingers as hard as he could between his eyebrows. The tears would roll back - he was convinced of it by now. Just a few more seconds.

"Kaoru! Are you there? Say something! Hello?!"

"Yes, yes… I'm okay. I just…" He paused, and drew a few more deep breaths.

"Ok, good, you had me worried there..."

"No, I'm… I'm actually not okay. I haven't been feeling well, Hikaru."

"You haven't? Are you sick?"

"No, Hikaru. It's back."

Hikaru was silent for a beat, and when he spoke again, his very voice had grown pale.

"It - it is? Are you sure? -"

"Yes."

"Oh, my God, Kaoru… Oh, my God…" It sounded like Hikaru had lost his balance and had to grab onto a wall. "What - what should I do?" the older brother asked breathlessly. "Please, just tell me. I'll do anything. You know that. I'm here for you. "

Kaoru sighed. To his credit, Hikaru had taken the news far better than he expected. If anything, his brother sounded like a small, scared child - but something also told Kaoru that he knew, for there was a note of sadness in his voice. The younger twin scrunched his eyebrows together and forced himself to take deep breaths until the pressure in his throat dissolved again.

"Kaoru… Please," Hikaru whispered. "Tell me what you need. I'll do everything I can, I promise. I love you."

"No, it's okay, Hikaru." Kaoru sighed again. "You don't need to do anything. Just… Please don't be mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you, Kaoru. I hate that you have to go through this, and I hate that - that THING, but this is NOT your fault."

"I just… I can't come back to work for at least a month, and -"

"They kicked you out -?! Those bastards -"

"NO, Hikaru, calm down, they did not kick me out. But they noticed I was falling behind on things, and they called me in to talk and offered me a leave and to help me get treatment. And it'll be okay, but I just need you to not be disappointed in me, alright?"

"That's it, you know what, I'm coming over there."

"Wha-?!"

"I'll be there tomorrow, day after at the latest -"

"Hikaru, I'm happy you're willing to do that for me, but that's really not necessary -"

"Yes, it is. I got you into that mess, I'll get you out - and don't you try and lie to me, Kaoru. I know exactly what caused your relapse." He chuckled. "It doesn't take a genius."

"Okay -"

"I'll call you back once everything's arranged, alright? I love you."

"Hika-"

But the line had already gone dead, and Kaoru clicked "end call" with an exasperated sigh. On the bright side, his brother seemed far too riled up to think of disappointment just yet, and appeared to have successfully internalized the person-disease distinction that was pounded into their heads at Hazeltown. But how exactly did he think that dropping everything and coming halfway across the Pacific would help things? After all, Kaoru felt just fine when he was there, for Hikaru never had eyes for anyone but him when they were in public. But they could not expect to spend every waking moment of the rest of their lives together. Even if Kaoru never worked as a doctor again, it simply was not realistic.

He tried to call Hikaru back, but it was useless. The number kept going straight to voice mail, which suggested that he was probably on the phone with Yuzuha arranging things. So Kaoru picked himself up from the bench and tried not to look back at the hospital doors as he walked to where his car was parked. Once out of the parking lot, he got onto the freeway headed east out of the city. A drive in the mountains, he decided, would be a better way to cope right then than anything that awaited him at home. Whether or not he liked it, and whether or not it made sense in the long-term, the prospect of Hikaru coming sooner than expected, as well as a break from his responsibilities, had made him feel just the tiniest bit heartened.

The sky had turned a purple-tinged, corrugated yellow before Kaoru's phone began to play The Thieving Magpie Overture again, and he pulled over to the edge of a scenic overlook.

"Ok, it's settled -" he heard Hikaru's voice, a little out of breath. "You don't want to know who I had to kill, but tomorrow, late, I'll be there. Sorry it couldn't be any sooner."

"Thank you," Kaoru smiled in spite of himself, getting out of the car. The sun had disappeared behind the crest of the mountain, headed Hikaru's way. "And it's okay. Like I said, you really didn't have to do this."

"Shut up - yes, I did. And I can stay all month, and more if need to, assuming I kiss mom's ass enough. There's just one condition. Mom said I need to bring Ageha."

"Ageha?"

Ageha was their little sister, in elementary school, and nearly ten - or at least that was what she liked to insist, even though she had only just turned nine.

"Yeah. That's what mom said. Seeing how it's summer, and she'll be taking on more on without me there, and she's all about Aggie being around family as much as possible so she doesn't turn out like us." Hikaru chuckled. "And besides, Ageha already knows she's going, and she's very keen. What with Boss's influence, she's obsessed with commoner culture. She can't wait to see how you live and where all the commoners go on vacation."

Kaoru pressed his lips together, squinting into the horizon. The ocean was quickly growing inky-black and a horned moon had risen in the sky, though a few surfers were still going strong on the beach below.

"Ok, well, that's fine," he said. " I do have a spare bedroom and all that. But you do realize that bringing a nine-year-old into this situation might be a little… problematic? I mean, how are we going to explain to her what's going on - why big brother Kaoru is taking an extended vacation from work but still seems to go somewhere for six hours a day? Or are we just not going to tell her?"

"I think we can just play it by ear. Heck, I would not be surprised if some of her CLASSMATES had eating disorders."

"Hikaru."

But then again, Aggie was precocious and no mistake. In fact, her entire generation seemed to be aware of things the twins had never even heard of at that age. By six, Ageha had figured out that Hikaru and Kaoru were Together, having announced, one day, that she thought one of them needed to grow a beard or else people would be confused as to who was "mommy" and who was "daddy." And when they had pressed her, bewildered, to explain what she meant, she replied that one of her friends at school also had a brother with a "friend," and the two kissed and spent all their time together. Indeed, the one thing that Hikaru and Kaoru were grateful she got wrong was the origin of babies: she seemed to think they came from touching bellybuttons.

"Point is, I think she can handle it. She's a tough kid, and you're family."

"Alright, well, I'll take your word for it," Kaoru said. His one small regret about moving away was that, unlike Hikaru, he only got to see Ageha once a year, and kids changed so quickly at that age. "You do realize the other problem, though, right? I just have the one spare bedroom, and I am NOT comfortable with her seeing us sharing a bed and to have just the one wall between us. And you won't be able to prance around without a shirt and with your junk flopping everywhere."

"Well, that's okay. I'll live. I can sleep on the couch, and I am more than capable of abstaining for a few weeks."

"Yeah, see, I'm not so sure about that last part." Kaoru chuckled.

"Okay, fair enough. I guess then maybe I can just come into your room and cuddle for a bit after she goes to bed, and then go back to the couch."

"Okay. That might work."

"Okay, then." Hikaru smiled. "See you yesterday, brother."


	18. A Family Like Us

The next evening, Kaoru met Hikaru and Ageha at the airport. Ordinarily, he would have worn his women's clothing -- considering his sister was aware of his habits. But he opted for khaki pants and a polo shirt instead, for he was feeling anything but sexy. Indeed, while the night before he had felt a little better after talking to Hikaru, when he got home everything had gone from bad to worse again, and the following day it took until 4 p.m. to peel himself out of bed and coax himself into having a cup of coffee.

Ageha spotted him from across the hall. 

"It's big brother Kaoru!" she cried gleefully, breaking into a run, and Kaoru caught her into a flying hug. He could swear, once again, that she had grown a couple inches since the last time, and he pressed her tighter against him, planting a kiss atop a head of auburn curls.

"Still lively as ever, isn't she?" Hikaru caught up with them, luggage cart in front -- for in Honolulu the commoner lifestyle began at the airport with fetching their own bags, and this time, they were heftier than usual, and included a sizable cello case.

Kaoru looked from his brother's happy face to that of his sister, and felt his heart overflow. The two of them looked so happy, and so alike in their happiness despite almost certainly having different fathers, that he wondered where he had gone wrong.

"And look how tall she's gotten" -- he beamed, straightening and letting Hikaru peck him on the cheek. "Aggie-chan, how tall are you right now?"

"Five feet exactly!" the girl declared -- not without a fair bit of truimph at both the height achievement and having mastered the American measurement system. "Or one hundred and fifty two point four centimeters!"

"Ooh, you're growing so fast -- you can be a model soon."

"I don't want to be a model!" Ageha stuck out her lip. "Nobody takes models seriously. I want to be a fashion designer, like mom and big brother Hikaru!"

"Well, I wouldn't call myself a designer," Hikaru laughed, squeezing Kaoru's hand a bit tighter than necessary. "It's still mostly mom and Shar these days. I'm just the ruthless business man behind it all -- so there'll be plenty of work for you when the time comes." 

Indeed, since Hikaru began his path toward the position of chairman and CEO, he had come up with the idea of breaking the operation into three distinct luxe levels, as well as the concept of factory stores. Yuzuha had nearly popped an aneurism at the prospect of "cheapening the brand," but in the end Hikaru had won, and they ended up moving several times the product volume they had before.

"Kao-chan!" Ageha jumped up and down in place, her curls bouncing. "I want to kiss hello like the French people do! On both cheeks, right?"

"That's exactly right" -- Kaoru laughed, bending his knees a bit to get down to her level. "Here's the key though," he said, glancing conspiratorially into her eyes, which were an intermediate shade between Hikaru's and his when he wore contacts. "When I'm kissing you on your right cheek, you have to kiss me on my left cheek. It takes a little bit of practice, but we can try it, okay?"

"Okay." Ageha nodded enthusiastically.

They tried, and ended up bumping noses in the middle, and both exploded into giggles. 

…

At age three, Ageha Hitachiin had a butterfly phase, but by the following year, she had abandoned butterflies in favor of songbirds, only to forget them too on account of having fallen fast and hard for horses. And that was how things went, one obsession eclipsing another, until at the age of six Ageha found herself at her first cat show. From that point on, it was true love, or the nearest thing to it that a child her age was capable of -- and it was also the reason why she looked wistfully out the window as they they drove away from the airport, and hugged her purse (cat-patterned of course) to her chest.

"I miss Shami," she said with a sigh. 

Shami, or Shamisen, was Ageha's Birman, a stocky, remarkably placid specimen of the breed whom she declared to be the only man she would ever love whenever well-meaning relatives asked her about boys. True to form, therefore, she had never missed a night sleeping with him, a meal with him eating by her side, or an opportunity to bathe him until the vet informed her that Shami developed a rash from too-frequent washings.

"Well," Kaoru smiled in the rear view mirror. "Maybe when we get home we can set it up so you can Skype with Shami."

"No, it won't be the same," Ageha sighed, following the communication lines with her eyes as the sky turned blood-orange. "I miss hugging him. I miss the way his fur feels, and how he sits in my lap, and how warm he is."

Kaoru sighed and pressed his lips, looking over to Hikaru. 

"Well, I'm sorry about that, Aggie-chan," the older twin said, picking the cue right up, for he has been watching Kaoru intently, and had reached out to touch his hand on the gearshift. "But that's just how life works sometimes. You can't always be with the people and things you love, so you have to learn to wait and tough it out until you can. Big brother Kaoru and I don't get to be together as often as we'd like right now, but we know it's only temporary, so we wait and we try not to be too sad, and that makes it more special when we do get together."

He looked back between the seats at his sister, but it did not seem like his words had had any effect. Indeed, she was still hugging the cat-purse to her chest and looked ready to cry.

"Ageha," said Kaoru, glimpsing in the mirror before locking his eyes on the road again. "If I understand correctly, people can derive happiness from talking and typing to each other, but the main way you derive pleasure from interacting with Shami is by holding him and petting him, right?"

Ageha nodded as the shadows swished rhythmically across the seats.

"Well, maybe we can find you another cat like Shami," said Kaoru. "It might not be the same, but I know that your love for Shami has never stopped you from being super-excited to cuddle cats wherever you go."

"I don't think that's necessary, Kaoru," Hikaru interjected. "Besides, I think it's important to learn the value of patience."

"Right, but it IS a month, Hikaru," Kaoru replied. "That's longer than even we have to be apart most times. I think there's no reason why we can't do something to help Aggie along, especially at first."

Hikaru drew a slow breath. 

"I do have a neighbor," Kaoru went on. "Mrs. Kamakawiwoʻole. She's the widow of a famous singer, and I've been too busy to visit her for a while, but I definitely know she's got a cat and would LOVE some Japanese treats."

He glanced in the rear-view mirror, and Ageha seemed to come alive a bit at the words, her small, heart-shaped face peeking out of the darkness.

"But it's probably too late to visit Mrs. Kamakawiwoʻole today," said Hikaru. "Especially on such short notice. So I think you're going to have to wait until tomorrow, Aggie."

"Yes," nodded Kaoru. "And tomorrow we can do other fun things, too, to get your mind off it. I have to go somewhere between 8 a.m. and one, but you and Hikaru can go ahead and go to the beach. A real commoners' beach, Waikiki. There'll be commoners as far as the eye can see, literally."

"And we can go snorkeling, and to the zoo, and to the royal palace," added Hikaru. "And I'm sure big brother Kaoru can recommend some nice commoner places to eat."

"Oh, yes." Kaoru's eyes lit up -- for much like the twins' father, or at least the father who raised them, he had steadily become an expert on "surprisingly good" commoner eateries. "There's this ramen place, ironically, on Ala Moana strip. It's the tiniest, most low-maintenance little place with just one counter, but the line is always out the door because the food's so authentic you'd never know you weren't in Japan --" 

"I'd rather go to a cat cafe." Ageha pouted, pressing her bag against her chin.

"Well, Aggie," said Kaoru. "I'm not sure I know of any cat cafes around here. In fact, I don't think they exist in the United States. Though, to be fair," he smirked, braking for a gaggle of tourists more bent on in gearing up for a raucous night than obeying traffic laws -- "I think in Hawaii at least there'd be a market for them. Not just for visitors who miss their pets, but because this really is a small place. It's hard to keep a lot of cats at home, but pay $10, and for an hour your dream of being a crazy cat lady can come true."

He looked in the mirror again, hoping to see the heart-shaped face back to its happy state, but Ageha had buried her head in her forearms and was sobbing -- barely audibly over the noise of the car. 

"Or, we can go to something called a pet shop," he said quickly. "There's got to be one around here somewhere that's still open."

"Kaoru, I really don't think --" But the words froze in Hikaru's throat, for Kaoru -- usually such a careful driver -- was already on his phone searching Google maps, and had not even pulled over as the law demanded.

...

An hour later, Kaoru had successfully found a pet shop in another part of town, and pacified the owner by buying a 10-pound bag of cat food in tacit exchange for letting Ageha play with the kittens. As a consequence, their sister's mood was much improved, and even though Hikaru had wanted to point out that bending to a child's whim like that was not good parenting, he knew he was in no position to expound on the virtues of patience, and Kaoru was in no place to take criticism right then. So he decided to let the matter rest until later, and they returned to Kaoru's condo, where Ageha spent a good ten minutes skipping around the place, exuberant at finally getting to see the inside of a real commoner's dwelling.

"I'm glad you like it," Kaoru said as he turned on the stove and poured some leftover pho into a pot. "I live here by myself, but among commoners it is not unusual for an entire family to share a place like this -- a mom, a dad, and even a kid or two."

"Right, a family like us!" cried Ageha, twirling in the middle of the living room with curls flying and arms akimbo. "Big brother Kaoru can be the mommy, big brother Hikaru can be the daddy, and I can be the baby, wheeee!"

"AL-right," chuckled Hikaru, catching his sister in his arms and gently restraining her. "Now, since we ARE commoners for a month," he said, squatting slightly so they were eye to eye, "One thing to remember is that we've got people living above us, below us, and behind each wall, so it's not a good idea to make too much noise late at night. And we don't have any hired help, so we're going to have to set the table and unpack our bags ourselves -- so why don't we do that right away, and help mommy-Kaoru?"

And so the table was unfolded and set, the pho consumed, the bags unpacked, and Shami -- held by a maid -- successfully skyped with. Before they knew it, it was past eleven o'clock, and Hikaru had gotten through reading a chapter of Pride and Prejudice with Ageha and ascertained that she was asleep before finally working up the courage to tiptoe into his brother's room. Kaoru was tucked under the covers with a book in hand, on the side closer to the flickering skyline and the gaping ocean. When Hikaru walked in, he looked up and smiled, a little sadly.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I know what you're going to say. But I just wanted to see her happy."

Hikaru chuckled, undoing his top button and sliding across the bed. "It's okay. It makes sense. You're not around her very much. The only reason I'm not like that is because mom's influence must've rubbed off on me."

"Well, just so you know, you're still a far cry from mom." Kaoru chuckled and put the book on the bedside table.

"That's good to hear." Hikaru moved in closer and nuzzled his twin, taking him by the hand.

"Thank you for coming, by the way."

"No need to thank me. It's the least I could have done." Hikaru slid under the covers, wrapping both his arms and legs around his brother. "I'm proud of you for telling me, by the way. I know I didn't handle it in the best way last time."

"Hikaru." Kaoru sniffed a laugh. "You do realize last time was ten years ago? Before Aggie was even born?"

"Yeah, I guess." Hikaru chuckled. "In fact, we found out mom was pregnant while we were at at Hazeltown, didn't we? Funny how things come full circle." 

Kaoru nodded and closed his eyes, and Hikaru nuzzled his brother's neck again, peeling away a flap of pajamas to kiss down the collar bone. He watched his brother's chest rise and fall -- riding a little too far up as it commonly did when Kaoru was anxious. 

"I'm sorry," Hikaru whispered. "I know it won't help saying it, but I love you with all my heart and I'm so, so sorry." He pressed his lips to where Kaoru's clavicles converged, and listened to the heart resounding through the bones.

"It's okay. I love you too."

"I just wish there was something I could do."

Kaoru lay perfectly still, and in the orange light from the lamp and the bit of skyline across the bay, he might have been sleeping, far beyond the reach of any pain. His chest was moving less now, and his skin seemed to glow, peacefully, from within.

Hikaru sighed and kissed him again, on the lips this time, and pressed his body more tightly against him. Kaoru's lips twitched and his eyelids fluttered, and Hikaru kissed yet again, more hungrily, running a hand down his brother's torso. For a moment, Kaoru seemed to shift as if to give him easier access, but when Hikaru's fingers reached the spot between his body and leg, the older twin felt a hand on his wrist.

"Let's not do this tonight, Hikaru."

"Okay, Kaoru. Okay." Hikaru drew his hand away, working to steady his breathing. 

"It's just that… Ageha…"

"It's okay." Hikaru took his brother's chin, pressing a kiss against his temple.

"She might have trouble sleeping in a new place."

"Don't worry, I'd understand even if it wasn't Ageha."

Kaoru opened his eyes, and they were liquid at the corners. Hikaru's heart skipped a beat, and he had to fight to keep from clasping his brother so hard he could have crushed him. 

"Look," he said, his voice quivering as he pulled away and propped himself on an elbow. "I -- I know you've always been afraid I'd take the next step without you. I'm pretty sure that's what this is all about. But I've seen the world, Kaoru, and I swear to God there is nothing out there that's better than you. I just wish there was something I could do to help. Some way I could fix things. Because sometimes I feel so helpless I can't even --" 

He paused to draw breath, but before he could speak he felt his brother's hand on his wrist again -- and the fingers were gentle, as if feeling for a pulse.

"It's okay. Just being here helps." The older twin looked back at Kaoru, and the younger one's lips, if not his eyes, were smiling. "We'll come up with something for you to do. We've got time, for better or for worse."


	19. Manic Manny

The next day, as promised, Hikaru conducted Ageha to the "commoner" beach of Waikiki while Kaoru went across town for his evaluation. They then followed up their soak in the sun with an afternoon photographing the lunar landscape that was Diamondhead National Park, and hiking up the mountain to take pictures from a peak that was once a military outlook. And in the evening, Ageha's cat fancy was appeased by a trip down that hall to Mrs. Kamakawiwo'ole's, where Hikaru and Kaoru spent an hour smiling stiffly through a service of sugar-laden matcha tea while Ageha chased a magnificent Norwegian forest cat around the condo. Mrs. Kamakawiwo'ole - even after the death of her husband - still made a tidy profit off his royalties and used them globe trot whenever she could. As a result, she was, as ever, full of questions about the old country, for - despite an apparent inability to pick up on the fact that matcha was not served with sugar - she had been there twice, and was a self-proclaimed Japanophile. But that - along with the eyesore that was her overstuffed living room, filled with everything from kokeshi dolls to Mayan sacred figurines, as well as an inflated puffer fish as a makeshift chandelier - was a small price to pay, for Ageha had come out of the visit nothing short of glowing.

And so the time passed - some of it spent on sun-drenched beaches - both commoner and not - some driving around the island with the convertible top down, and some dining in hole-in-the-wall restaurants where Ageha and Hikaru were introduced to cooking their own meat for fun. Kaoru began to wonder whether there was something to be said for the Japanese treatment for depression after all. For back on their side of the pond, talk and medications were still not the treatment of choice for many people. Instead, doctors and laypeople alike often chose to ascribe everything and anything to overwork, and the cure for overwork, as was well known, was a trip to a spa, an onsen, or somewhere high up in the mountains. The air was different up there, away from the buzz of big cities. You could breathe the silence, and silence had a way of telling you many strange and wonderful things.

After all, he wondered, perhaps the stress and the lack of sleep had made the matter with Hikaru go to his head. His brother had clearly been sorry, and it clearly could have been worse - and, whatever Hikaru's sexual appetite, the whole thing was clearly out of character. Indeed, Hikaru had always had a mischievous streak, but it was not as if he had no conscience, and more importantly, his brother was not the sort to spend years trying to win someone over only to throw it all away. Try as he might, Kaoru could not imagine it. Not while he watched Hikaru help Ageha with the sunscreen between unloading the beach things from the car - with the latter chattering all the while about the importance of both a healthy skin AND a beautiful skin, as well as the horrors of skin cancer. And not while he watched his brother running to catch up with her as she climbed up on the lava flats reaching out into the ocean.

Not that he actually believed any of it, of course - namely, that there was no problem. For that reason, he still kept Hikaru at arm's length during their private moments. But it was what he had resolved on, for the moment, as he felt himself heat up like a griddle under the sun. To leave the picking apart of things for his therapy sessions, and to enjoy his time with family. After all, he would only get so much of it.

And so two or three days later the three of them were taking a bread from their chock-full schedule - with Ageha making poor attempts at rolling sushi, Hikaru nursing a few sunburns and a Sapporo on the couch, and Kaoru idly scrolling through recipes on Pinterest (™). It had been a quiet early afternoon, with only the vertical blinds oscillating slightly in the breeze, when they heard the doorbell ring. Kaoru got up to get it, and opened the door to find a uniformed courier on the threshold. The man had a large box by his feet, and the box had holes in it.

"Mr. Hitachi?"

"Yes?"

"This is for you. Sign please." The courier held out a clipboard and a pen.

"What is it? I don't remember ordering anything."

"I do believe it's a live animal."

"A - what?!"

"SHAMI!"

Ageha had slid, as if into home base, past Kaoru's legs, and clasped the box into a hug.

"Wait, THAT'S Shami? But -" Hikaru had materialized at Kaoru's elbow and was peering at the sister-encrusted box, a fresh layer of aloe over his cheekbones.

"Mom ended up saying that Shami could come after all -" Ageha's very voice beamed as she rubbed her cheek against the plastic, smiling as blissfully as if she was already in contact with Shami himself. "But he needed to get a health certificate and some shots first, because Hawaii's got a unique ecosystem and they didn't want to let him in if he had any germs that they don't get around here."

Kaoru motioned for the courier to hand him the clipboard and scribbled a signature across the indicated space, but Hikaru's arms remained folded firmly across his chest.

"Well, then why didn't you say anything to either of us?" he asked, looking vexedly at his sister as the courier took his leave. "And why didn't mom say anything?"

"Oh," said Ageha, looking up with large eyes at her brother. "I'm sowwy. I just wanted to surprise you, I guess, and I told mom that I did -"

Hikaru sighed, at a loss as to how to respond, and Kaoru squatted down to his sister's level and gently pried her hands away from the box.

"Well, anyway," he said, glancing into her eyes, "Now that Shami's here, maybe we should take him inside and let him out, how about that? He's probably had an even longer trip than you did, what with customs and all, and he needs to stretch his paws a bit."

Ageha nodded, and Kaoru lifted the box by the handle, motioning Hikaru out of the way as he carried it inside. The box gave a displeased meow, and something like the rustle of bundled-up cloth and the squeak of claws against a hard surface emanated from inside. Kaoru placed the carrier on the kitchen island, and Hikaru shut the door, having put on his best poker face.

"Well, Ageha," he said through tight lips as Kaoru fumbled with the clasp. "I'm sure Kaoru's just going easy on you now because you're family, but you do know it is very rude to bring your pet to someone's house to stay and not let them know ahead of time?"

"I know, I'm sowwy," said Ageha, turning nearly as pink as Hikaru and rubbing her foot as if mashing a crushed bug into the floorboards.

"And it's even more rude to make those people go out of their way to find other cats for you to see, when you know you're going to get Shami delivered to you in a few days - isn't that right, Kaoru?" he added sternly.

"Well, technically, yes," echoed the younger twin, running his eyes over an attached instruction sheet that apparently had a step-by-step guide as to how to open the cage. "I think if anyone else were in my shoes, they might be somewhat displeased."

"I - well - I'm sowwy about that too" – Ageha fiddled with the clasp of her belt. "But… I didn't know for sure if they'd let Shami into the country, and the first few days are always the hardest. Mom said he had to get all kinds of tests, because they said he might have bugs on him. Though, to be honest, I don't think he's got bugs; I always make sure I -"

But Ageha did not get to finish her thought, for Kaoru had succeeded in undoing the lock, at which point the door did not open - it SHOT open, and a streak of brown and tan fur flew out like a panicked bullet, disappearing into Kaoru's room.

All three Hitachiins ran after it, only to get caught in a jumble at the door, but it was too late. Shami was already on the bed, bushy tail held high, and a large, yellow puddle was spreading over the comforter, the harsh smell of ammonia having pervaded the room in half a minute less than no time.

Hikaru turned a livid white - even despite the sunburn - and Ageha covered her face with her hands.

"No! Bad Shami!" she whimpered - but Kaoru, thankfully, was already coming through with a roll of paper towels and before the other two could blink had pulled the comforter from under the cat - sending him, with another displeased meow, back into Ageha's arms. Having ascertained that the urine did not, in fact, leak past the covers, he proceeded to blot them, violently, with paper towels for a good minute, then sighed and looked up at his siblings with a half-smile, lips pursed at the corners.

…

Twenty minutes later, his inconvenient trans-Pacific trip apparently avenged sevenfold, Shami was back to his mellow self and draped over Ageha's arms like a rag doll. The comforter, too, was safely in the wash, the damaged spot having been scrubbed - courtesy of a quick web-search and, at Hikaru's stern behest, by Ageha - with vinegar, baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, and then dish soap. Hikaru seemed to have grown a bit more calm as well, and Kaoru proposed they go out to eat while the smell aired out.

"Alright," said Hikaru, heaving himself up as the blinds quivered in the slanting sunlight. "But no dessert for Aggie."

And off they went, to one of Kaoru's favorite terrace-places, for after three solid days of commoner-living it was decided by majority vote that the host deserved a break from his typical dining routine more than the guests deserved a break from the lap of luxury. The sun had begun to sink, the most unforgiving of the rays melting into a shimmering patina over the waves. The breeze had woken up - it never stayed asleep for very long in Hawaii - and each of the siblings had just had an impeccably arranged platter of sashimi and shaved radish placed in front of them. The clink of the glasses mixed pleasantly with the rustle of the waves and the cries of the swimmers below, and Hikaru seemed to have grown happy enough to reach across to Kaoru and smooth a stray hair behind his ear. Kaoru smiled, showing off his dimple, and motioned Ageha not to wave her chopsticks around. He then took up his glass, mimicking his little sister's hold with an extended pinkie, and was about to propose an alcohol-free toast, when he heard someone cry -

"Kaoru!"

The younger twin barely needed to glance across the patio to know who it was. He could have recognized the hallooing voice anywhere.

"Well, well" - he spun around - "As I live and breathe, it's Manchester United!"

And Manchester, or Manny, it indeed was - having aged hardly at all since they last saw her four years ago at UCLA, or, for that matter, since the day they met her ten years ago at Hazeltown. Only her face had grown leaner, but she still had a chestnut mane to be envied, Tamaki-blue eyes, and the figure of a slightly more buxom Cat Woman. That day, the dress she wore complemented her shape very nicely: its red stripes racing along her curves, a belt cinching her waist, and her top leaving little to the imagination as she dragged along a chuckling, sheepish-looking man who looked like a whiter version of Kyouya and was equal to her in height.

"Dr. Hitachiin, you call me that one more time and I will subject you to a surgery you'll NEVER WAKE UP FROM!"

Kaoru got up to meet her, and the girl pulled him into a clumsy, unceremonious bear-hug, nearly crushing him against her ample bosom.

"Dr. Lesar" - Kaoru laughed - "If you don't stop with the death threats I will have you COMMITTED!" - They broke the hug, and both exploded into laughter.

"Actually" - Manchester said once she recovered her breath - "It's not Dr. Lesar anymore - it's Dr. Tachibana**." She held out her hand, which bore a ring the size of an overgrown scarab beetle. "Or will be soon, anyway. We're eloping."

(**I stole Makoto's last name from Free! and I am not ashamed.)

She gestured with her thumb over her shoulder at the man behind her, whose handshake and exchange of pleasantries with Hikaru and Ageha had been overshadowed by his fiancee's exuberance. His name was Matthew Tachibana, and he was an American Hapa the twins remembered back from Kaoru's exchange year at UCLA, when all Manny and the twins had lived together. Indeed, Kaoru recalled the exact night Matthew had come into Manny's life. At the time, Manny had been a med student and Matthew a law student, and they came stumbling home from a bar, locked themselves up in her room, and proceeded to have a loud debate on gun control that lasted three hours.

"I've tried and tried and tried to call you," said Manny, clasping both of Kaoru's hands and making a show of looking earnestly into his eyes. "But you never answered! At first I assumed you were just swamped at work, but in the end I decided if I didn't find you by the end of today, I was going to organize a search party, because I mean really -"

"N-no, it's alright." Kaoru's cheeks turned as red as Hikaru's, which were still recovering from his earlier lack of foresight. "Why don't you two join us?" He motioned at the extra chairs at the table.

"Okay." Manchester smiled with the apples of her cheeks, and pulled at her fiance's sleeve.

"So!" Hikaru smiled wide, as the newcomers settled into their chairs, introductions were exchanged - mostly for Ageha's benefit - and the waiter appeared and then disappeared, leaving behind two extra menus. "You two. Engaged! Congratulations."

"Yep." Manny returned the smile, on loan from the Red Carpet and all but encrusted with diamonds. Matthew had been looking at her as only Gatsby could have looked at Daisy ever since he ran out of questions to ask Hikaru, and she rewarded with him with a fleeting glance before continuing. "I know, you'd think, it's me, and Hawaii - so real creative, right? But what're you gonna do? I have fond memories of this place, seeing how it's the place where I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started living, thanks in part to you both and maybe 1% thanks to Hazeltown. And to be honest, I hate all the stupid frills that come with weddings, and if I'd let my parents anywhere near the thing they'd have invited five billion corrupt State Senators and run an announcement in the New York Times, and sucked all the fun out of it." She shook her head. "No, I'd rather run away, and this is the last place anyone would expect me to be."

The twins looked at each other, their eyes shining with knowing smiles. Ten years later, Manny was still manic as ever. She still spoke a mile a minute, and her eyes still shone, and she might have filled the room with her voice and gestures if Matthew did not keep a hand on her forearm.

"Anyway, we thought it would be just close friends. Us, you two of COURSE, and York" - York that was Manchester's younger sister, aged seventeen - "A couple of my girlfriends from med school, and I told Gaby that if she and Kyouya did not show up, I was blacklisting them from my life - I mean, it's only a five-hour flight from San Francisco. It's the least you can do for a best friend."

"Oh, Manny." Kaoru chuckled wistfully. "I really will have to commit you, won't I? It's either that, or one of these days someone will refuse to negotiate with you on account of your being an emotional terrorist - and I'm worried you won't be able to survive that."

Manny puffed out her lips, but her eyes twinkled, and she giggled.

"Well, I'll defer to your expertise, Dr. Kaoru" - she beamed, leaning forward and folding her eyes over her menu. "But you'll let me get married first, right?"

"Of course."

"Alright, perfect. But I need a flower girl. Aggie-chan," she turned to the girl, who was sitting with her back very straight and her chin up as if it would help her listen. For Matthew's benefit - since he was a fourth-generation Japanese immigrant - and that of Manny - for she claimed she was "rusty" - the conversation was being carried on in English, and Ageha was the only person whose knowledge of the language was limited. "Do you want to be the flower girl at my wedding tomorrow?" she asked in Japanese, making emphatic eye contact. Manny did not know the word for "flower girl," but she guessed that "furawāgāru" would be close enough**.

(**It is.)

But Ageha shook her head.

"No," she declared in English. "I want to carry the ring!"

"You want to be the ring bearer?" Manny raised her eyebrows.

"Yes." Ageha smiled all the way to her ears, nodding stolidly.

"Ageha," said Hikaru in Japanese with an astringent look. "It's not polite to volunteer yourself for jobs at other people's weddings. You take what you're offered, or nothing at all."

Ageha's shoulders drooped under his gaze, and if she had ears that were more animated than a human's they might have drooped as well. But Manny leaned back and refolded her arms over her chest with a chuckle as the sound of the shoreline seemed to momentarily swell.

"Oh, but you two have taught her well," she said - in English once again. "Nine years old, and already pooh-poohing gender roles. Are you quite sure she's a sister and not a daughter? You're going to make such good parents someday."

Kaoru cheeks momentarily became the color of fresh raspberries and he averted his eyes, though his features belied something uncertain - and something beyond a simple embarrassment at flattery. Hikaru must have looked caught off-guard as well, for Manny had turned her head to the side, a somewhat inscrutable look flickering over her face as she narrowed her eyes.

"You… ARE still… ?-" she asked slowly. "Or is there…"

But Hikaru picked his facade back up almost immediately, chuckling as he shook his head.

"Tisk-tisk, Dr. Lesar, so unobservant," he said, pointing at his brother's hand. "Kaoru's got a ring. It might not look like your typical engagement ring, but it is. We wear them on the left in Japan, too." Indeed, his brother had been wearing the orange band with the two strings of diamonds on and off, claiming that he was still getting used to the idea. In very Japanese spirit, too he had insisted that he did not want to flaunt his status. But that day, as luck would have it, Hikaru had encouraged him to wear it, and Kaoru had. "We're still together, and we're going to make it official soon - or have a ceremony anyway. You two will be welcome, of course."

"Well, congratulations to you too, then." Matthew smiled, fixing his turtle-rimmed glasses over the bridge of his nose. "You should have said something earlier. We'll be happy to come, of course - when it happens."

"Oh." Manny lowered her eyes. "W-well, I guess I just didn't - I'm sorry. I guess I've been out of the loop, what with residency devouring all our lives. I hadn't heard anything explicit about your relationship in a while, so I thought that maybe…"

She pulled at her napkin, suddenly intent on inspecting the fibers. The surf rose again, the cries of the long-boarders carrying over the waves and the crowded sea of sand below, and even for Manic Manny the change had seemed too quick.


	20. Monsters

When the twins parted ways with Manny and Matthew, having promised to meet up over the next week to help with preparations, it was nearly evening. The shadows had begun to slant, and with the highrises in the way, there were places where the sun no longer reached the pavement. Manny had told them about her favorite attraction, a place called the Blowhole about a half an hour's drive out of the city, and Ageha expressed a keen interest in seeing it right then. At first, Hikaru had had his doubts about giving in to Ageha's demands once again, but Kaoru had said he wanted a drive to clear his head, and so it was decided - for if it really was only a half an hour's way away, and little more than a formation in the rocks, it was highly unlikely to derail things too much.

Kaoru was quiet as they walked back to the car, speaking only to Ageha now and then, and at first Hikaru did not think much of it. Kaoru had a way of being quiet, and sometimes it would be mean something, but more often it meant nothing at all, so Hikaru had long ago taught himself not to get worried ahead of time.

But as they left the streets of town and Ageha plugged into her headphones, fixing her eyes on the lanes ahead as Kaoru hugged the road snaking up the side of the mountain, Hikaru could not help thinking that together with Manny's comment Kaoru's silence was a little too long and a little too strange for comfort. For Manny had always been on more intimate terms with the younger twin, having learned to tell the two of them apart early on. And although she had declared that her kiss with Kaoru back at Hazeltown had been nothing more than a rebound, during the twins' exchange year in the U.S. the "intimate terms" had extended to her always sitting a little closer to him when extra-happy or simply drunk, and speaking to him more often than to anyone else whenever they were in company. Of course, Kaoru had never done anything to suggest that he knew, much less returned her feelings, and at the end of the day it was probably just wishful thinking on Manchester's part. But even Manny could not pull something like that out of thin air. As they rounded the mountainside, the sun had dipped into the ocean and disappeared behind the bend. Hikaru bit his lip, digging his fingers into the seat as he tried to to will away the images forming in his mind.

Still, he did not like to bother his Kaoru as the latter drove, so it was not until they arrived at the outlook that he made up his mind to say something. A steep, boulder-strewn path led down from the parking lot into a rocky cove, and then veered onto a lava shelf jutting out into the ocean. The Blowhole was a crevice in the rocks where the ocean had washed underneath, and when the waves hit it just right, a fountain of spray would shoot up, sometimes dozens of feet up into the air. Most people observed from above where they parked their cars, and no one ever seemed to spend much time there, for it was the sort of thing people would stop to look at in passing if they stopped to look at all, and nearby Sandy Beach, with its famous treacherous waves, was by far the more popular attraction. Indeed, it was exactly Manny to grow irrationally fond of something trivial, but in the few hours they had spent together, Ageha had grown just as irrationally fond of Manny herself, and had gotten it into her head to come close to the would-be geyser and capture it on video just as her new idol had.

And so the Hitachiins braved the climb, edging their way down the promontory face, and Ageha parked herself by the hole and hunkered down to wait, Nikon in hand. Hikaru had just finished helping her adjust the settings when he noticed, from the way the wind had shifted, that Kaoru was no longer beside him. He jumped up with a start, and rushed to the edge of the shelf, only to find that it continued lower down, the rocks forming a staircase that ended in a gentle slope before dropping off again. From where he stood before - or from the outlook, for that matter - he had not seen it on account of the spongy boulders that littered the main shelf. Kaoru was standing at the bottom of the slope, eyes fixed on the shimmering remnants of the sun beyond the cliffs.

"Kaoru -" The word broke unwillingly from the older twin's lips, sounding more alarmed than he intended. Kaoru glanced over his shoulder, and the older twin breathed a sigh, bending his knees to brace himself as he climbed down.

"Kaoru, don't just walk off like that. I was worried you fell into the ocean."

"Sorry." The younger twin turned back to the horizon, and Hikaru sat down beside him, crossing his legs. Closer to the water, the rock was warmer, as if the sun had been there more recently.

"Kaoru, can I talk to you about something?"

"Sure, Hikaru."

Kaoru's voice sounded odd. It was remarkably placid, and, for the lack of a better word, nice. Almost too nice, and somehow eerily devoid of feeling at the same time. The older twin breathed a tentative sigh. He had always been the talker in the family, despite being, in some of their friends' estimation, the more emotionally retarded one. But Kaoru's whole manner was somehow forbidding, as if he had folded up and disappeared inside himself.

"It's about Manny." Hikaru licked his lips, fixing his eyes on his brother's profile.

"Oh. What about her."

"I get that you might not have told her about the engagement, what with everything that's been going on. But is there a reason why she thought that we're not together anymore? Don't you two talk anymore?"

"No, we do. Once a month or so."

"So?…"

"So, what?"

"So, I'm hard pressed to imagine that I never come up. I mean, I thought -"

"Well, Hikaru, you know how I am," Kaoru replied, his gaze still hovering far away. "I want things to be official, yes, but that's in large part because I don't like to have to keep reminding people of my relationship status." The younger twin paused, licking his lips as well. He spoke as if he was reciting a prepared speech, and Hikaru wondered just how long Kaoru had been expecting this conversation. "After all, if someone's married, they're married, and people just assume that's how it's going to be until further notice. Which is good, because I don't like to be the guy who rubs his relationship in everyone's face, and who's always saying my boyfriend this, my lover that - ESPECIALLY since I am very well aware that Manny, for instance, still has feelings for me, even if it can never go anywhere and she knows it. That's why I tend to let her steer the conversation. Same with Tamiko, by the way. I only told her because I felt I had no choice. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe I SHOULD talk about it more, so people don't assume things."

"Yes, maybe you should." Hikaru nodded indulgently, drawing a slow breath. Whew, dodged a bullet - he thought.

But Kaoru still stared, brows furrowed, into the distance.

"It's not your fault, though," Hikaru added uneasily.

"No, I guess not."

"Just so we're clear, I didn't mean to sound like I was accusing you. She's the one who assumed things, after all."

"No, that's not it." Kaoru broke eye contact with the horizon and turned, abruptly, to his brother. "Hikaru, you do realize," he said, slowing down his cadence to a ponderous crawl, "That people like us - we don't GET a whole lot of support from the people in our lives?"

"Yes, of course, Kaoru."

"Ok, then, do you also realize that Manchester, whatever her feelings are for me, has always been one of our biggest supporters, and yet it seems that even SHE is not immune to doubt? Because people don't have faith in couples like us. People ASSUME we're going to break up. That the pressure will end up being too much."

Hikaru looked down, biting his lip. Kaoru's voice - and look - was anything but hollow now, the forbidding feeling of the pre-recorded speech replaced by something Hikaru had no name for.

"And do you realize, too," Kaoru continued, his voice shaking, "That I could have had her? And Tamiko too, and Haruhi way back when. They were real people I could have had lives with, or at least done more than stick my junk in them for a few minutes. And I might not have had to spend my life hiding. But I didn't. I chose not to, because you were more important to me. And you - you threw it all away, and for what?"

"I - I'm sorry?" Hikaru's breath caught in his throat and he made a move to back away, almost before he knew what he was doing.

"No." Kaoru shook his head bitterly. "You're not. That's the problem. You think you can just say sorry, and everything's going to be alright. But it's not. In fact, it might never be the same again."

"Kaoru…"

"Don't 'Kaoru' me!"

Hikaru, without registering it, had scrambled to his feet, and Kaoru followed suit. As the two faced each other, the slope hiding them from view on the one side and the ocean stretching on the other, the water quickly turned a dark gunmetal as the sun sank beyond the horizon.

"No, look, I - I'm sorry," Hikaru stammered, swallowing hard and putting up his hands. "I really am. And you're more than justified in hating me. God knows, I deserve it…"

"Damn straight. And no, Hikaru. It's not my fault. It's yours."

"I'm -"

But before he could finish his thought a hand had seized his collar, pulling him forward into a near-chokehold - and then a white-hot pain sliced down his middle as a knee met his groin. Hikaru gave a strangled cry and doubled over, pulling his shirt out of Kaoru's grasp as he fell to his knees. The hard, spongy grain of the pumice cut into his skin, but he hardly felt it as a vice-grip seized his stomach and he retched, sending its contents all over the ground.

"Fu -" But he had barely caught his breath when a cruel foot, clad in Lacoste leather, met his body again, sending him sprawling to the ground. He broke the fall, skinning both his elbows, only to have the wind knocked out of him again, this time with the full force of a foot against his ribs.

"God. Fucking. Damn it, Hikaru" - he heard his brother above him - "I changed" - kick - "who I was" - kick - "for you" - kick - "I gave up" - kick -"A normal life" - kick -" For you" - kick - "And you" - kick - "You couldn't keep your dick in your pants for five minutes?!"

Each blow winded Hikaru still more, and all he could do was cover his face with his hands and pull his legs up. But the kicks came harder and faster, and the breaths he did manage turned into sobs. He knew this would happen. He knew it would happen, and he deserved all of it. He knew it from the moment he saw the expression with no name in Kaoru's eyes. The expression was anger, but he did not recognize it because he had literally never seen it on him. And the voice, too, breaking with every word as it did, hardly sounded like his brother's.

And then the kicks stopped. For a second, Hikaru lay still, eyes squeezed tightly shut as the pain that had failed to reach full force before swelled and threatened to wrench the life from his body. But then he heard something clatter to the ground and took an unwilling breath in - his chest expanding as if against a searing cage - and opened his eyes.

Ageha stood no more than five paces away, her hands still at the level of her chest where she had held the Nikon, face petrified with unadulterated terror. Kaoru stood less than two feet away, his face buried in his hands, and his shoulders and knees were shaking.

…

Hikaru must have passed out, because the next thing he knew a blurry image of Kaoru's face coming into focus and a hand on his cheek was trying to shake him awake. He tried to move his lips and take a breath, but his ribs ran against the white-hot cage again, and his whole body spasmed.

"Hika - are you alright? Say something -"

"Unh -"

"I'm - I'm so sorry… I don't know what came over me -" Kaoru's hands were cold, and he was trembling all over, and his face was that of a man about to meet his maker.

"No, it's…" But a bolt of new pain sliced through him before he could finish, and Kaoru squeezed his hands.

"I think you might have some bruised or broken ribs. Does it hurt when you breathe?"

Hikaru nodded, once.

"Breathe anyway. Deep as you can. It'll be worse if you don't. I'm going to need to feel to see how bad it is - okay?"

As Hikaru blinked hard and struggled to obey, it dawned on him that once Kaoru had realized he was alive and awake, the panic had quickly ebbed from his voice and he was speaking the way he must have done on the job in an emergency - quickly but not too quickly, his voice almost devoid of feeling, but not in the unsettling way it had been earlier. As Hikaru felt hands deftly undoing his button-down, he wanted to cry. Had they really reached the end of the line? All he had to do was close his eyes, and he could so easily pretend that they were playing doctor again, just like they did when they were fifteen. If not for the searing grid imprinted on his chest, Kaoru's pressure was just as firm and gentle as always… If he could move, he would have wrapped his arms around his brother - and he felt his chest shudder, though not from the pain.

"I - I'm sorry, Hika…"

"N-no… It's… It's not bad…"

"Okay, Hika… Okay." Kaoru placed a hand on the middle of his chest. "Just focus on breathing. I don't think anything's broken, but if you feel like you can't get enough air no matter what you do, tell me right away, okay?" Kaoru glanced, for the first time, into Hikaru's eyes, and the older twin could not read them, except that they were deep and aching green. "But we need to get you home. Do you think you can move your legs?"

"I- I think so..."

"Ok, let's try and get you up."

Hikaru nodded, and Kaoru put one hand under his shoulders and used the other to pull him up by the waistband as he guided him first into a sitting, then a squatting, and then a standing position. That done, Kaoru tossed Hikaru's arm over his shoulders and put his own around his waist. To the younger twin's credit, Hikaru felt only a slight spasm or two for his trouble, but while Kaoru's movements were careful and gentle, they were also somehow sterile, just as his voice had been.

"Ageha," Kaoru called. "Let's go."

Aggie had been squatting a little way's away, unmoving, her eyes locked on the waves splashing against the rock below. She got up and approached without a word.

"Pick up your camera."

Ageha obeyed, hardly looking at her brother, and they began their ascent.

…

When they arrived back at the condo, Ageha immediately pulled a napping Shami off an armchair, and, ignoring his displeased yawp and prying his claws from the upholstery, disappeared into her room. She had not looked at her brothers once the whole drive over. She even pretended not to notice that by the time they reached the underground parking lot, Hikaru was well enough to hobble on his own, and had insisted on doing so all the way to the couch, which was still unfurled in bed-mode.

Kaoru disappeared into the bathroom and returned a few minutes later with a glass of water and a bottle of pills. The blinds cast long shadows across the floor, the city having turned on like a television set. Hikaru covered his face with his hands.

"Here," he heard his brother's voice, and felt the mattress shift as he sat down. "Take some painkillers. That's all you can do right now, I'm afraid - and rest. We don't bind bruised ribs anymore because that restricts breathing and makes an infection more likely."

Hikaru wanted to cry. Forget fifteen - he felt like he was ten, no, five, and all alone, and just wanting Kaoru to come back and make it all better. But Kaoru did not even have a hand for him anymore. Just pills and a guilt couched in beautiful but nonetheless painfully perfunctory bedside manner. Ever since he had put him in the car, he had not touched him, and had not said a word or looked at him. Even now he sat a good two feet away by the feel of things. Hikaru opened his eyes and saw his brother, his skin grey in the moonlight, still holding the glass and two pills in his palm of his hand.

With a groan, he shifted onto his elbow and reached for them, but when their fingers touched the younger twin pulled away almost too quickly. Hikaru swallowed the pills and took a gulp of water, closing his eyes again. He still had to make a conscious effort with every breath, but the pain had gone from a sharp, barbed-wire cage to a constant ache that only got worse when he moved. Indeed, as the pills edged down his throat he felt a smidgen more hopeful. As if forgetting the pain would mean forgetting everything else, too.

"I understand if you don't want to have anything more to do with me," Kaoru said after a moment, putting the bottle on the table by the couch and making a move to get up.

"No, don't go…"

Kaoru must have paused in surprise, for Hikaru heard the floorboards and the joints of the bed creak and then fall silent.

"Please," he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut to keep tears from forming. "Just stay here with me."

"But…"

But Hikaru must have looked suitably pitiful, because a few seconds passed, and Kaoru did not appear to move. They sat in silence for a while, and the blinds made a sh-sh-sound against one another in the breeze from the balcony.

"Look, I know what you're going to say," said Hikaru. "And other people might not agree. But I've known you all my life, and I know you're better than that. I'm not going to give up on you, Kaoru."

The older twin still held his eyes tightly shut, and heard Kaoru draw a breath.

"But what if you're wrong? What if I'm not? And even if I am, what if we just bring out the worst in each other?"

"N-no… We don't…"

"What if by isolating ourselves from the world for so many years, we've become so twisted that all we can do is engage in an endless cycle of violence?"

"Kaoru, no -"

"Besides" - the younger twin sighed ruefully - "It was ultimately my choice whether to stay or try my luck elsewhere. And it's not as if you forced me to change my name and my gender and my whole identity. That came from my own insecurity - and wanting to make everything 'official.' And at the same time I wasn't the one who spent a summer in a mental institution pretending to have an eating disorder, and I wasn't the one who dropped everything and moved to LA, and who spent two years of my life flying across the ocean every two weeks."

"Kaoru, stop…" Hikaru opened his eyes and reached out a hand, but the younger twin was sitting too far away, his eyes fixed on the grill of a ventilator built into the floor. "Stop beating yourself up."

The younger puffed out his lip and turned to his brother. With the way the light fell, his eyes were too dark to see into them, but already Hikaru's pain was beginning to abate, and his determination had returned.

"It's not a contest," he began, taking advantage of his brother's consternation. "We've both hurt each other, and both given up a lot, but isn't that what we learned a long time ago - that that's just part of the condition of being close with someone?"

"The hedgehog's dilemma?" Kaoru half-chuckled. "But where do you draw the line? Love isn't supposed to hurt, you know. Not like this."

The older twin sighed, pulling the pillow to him and settling down again, for the effort of propping himself up was taking its toll.

"Look, all I mean," he said, "Is that you always keep things to yourself. You must have always thought that you could deal with things on your own, or that you'd only be burdening other people with you feelings. So obviously something had to give. I'm not saying it's right, but I've sort of been expecting it. And who knows - it might be the kind of reality check we've been needing."

The younger twin stared at his hands. All his life, he - and everyone around them - had pegged Hikaru as the less mature one, and it was no wonder, for the older twin seemed to adore flinging his feelings about like a child, propriety and better sense be damned. And yet, perhaps he, Kaoru, had been the emotionally retarded one all along, to think he was above other mortals, and that the only option for him was acknowledge, bracket, and endure. And perhaps he had sold his brother short all along, for it seemed that despite his otherwise flighty nature, and in spite of his own silence, Hikaru had understood him, perhaps entirely too well. Suddenly, it even made sense that he had tried, for so many years, and unsuccessfully, to break into both his body and his heart. He was trying to save him.

"And I still believe in us," Hikaru added.

"Yeah." Kaoru chuckled acridly. "Except why do I feel like you're the only one who does?"

"I'm not the only one."

"Well, who else is there?"

"Ageha. Forget Manny - Aggie's our biggest fan." The older twin sniffed a laugh and winced a bit, raising his arms to put his hand under his head. "It's kind of remarkable, if you think about it. We've actually succeeded in making her think that what we have is good and normal, and it's the rest of the world that doesn't understand."

"Oh, God…"

Kaoru buried his face in his hands. Ageha. He had hardly thought of her in the last hour. Like his brother, he had woken up only when the Nikon clattered to the ground - and the camera now lay, its lens broken off with the screw still in place, on the kitchen counter. When it happened, his only real thought had been that they had failed, both as brothers and as parents, but he now doubled over under a new wave of guilt, for Hikaru's words had recalled to mind the other cost of his ambition. In the past two years, his life had been comprised of largely two things: his job and Hikaru. He hardly knew his sister anymore - much less what she believed in.

"For her sake, we can't give up."

"Yeah," Kaoru echoed. "I guess she's the one I'm more worried about."

"Well, go get her then. She needs to see that we're talking this out, like adults."

Kaoru nodded, and shifted to get up again, but not before stretching out a hand to touch his brother's.

"It won't happen again, you know."

"I know."

"I'll work on not letting things build up, okay? I don't want this. This isn't me."

"I know it's not." Hikaru squeezed his brother's hand. "Now go."

…

"Ageha!" Kaoru knocked on the door. "Aggie, Hikaru and I want to talk to you about something."

The younger twin closed his eyes and drew a tentative breath, counting slowly to himself. Indeed, what had happened with Ageha had been the terrible, no-good, irredeemably bad cherry on top of everything else, and - while he had cordoned it off in the moment - the thing that had nearly broken him. But as he stood at the door, the impassiveness of his voice took him by surprise. Perhaps he wasn't bad at this whole parenting thing after all.

But the room was silent. He brought his ear closer to the door and thought he could make out breathing, but it could have been the rustle of air from the vents.

"Go away" - he finally heard Ageha's voice. Unsurprisingly, it was laced with tears. "I hate you."

Kaoru closed his eyes and tried to force himself to focus only on breathing.

"Aggie, I know you're feeling a lot of things right now, and a lot of them are probably really confusing. It wasn't an easy thing to witness. But we're a family and we love you. I want us to try and get through this together."

"No."

Kaoru could almost imagine her folding her arms across her chest, her proud chin shooting up. He chewed on his lips for a half-minute or so, raking his brain for a different approach, but then a scratching at the foot of the door and the sound of claws sliding against metal interrupted his thoughts. Shami, it seemed, had come to the rescue. Kaoru suppressed a smile - for among his many good qualities, Shami was very clever when he wanted to be, which manifested in a remarkable ability to jump and swat at doorknobs, often succeeding in opening them if they were the lever kind. Indeed, Ageha had even trained him to use a human toilet and to flush via the same tactic, though that was a skill he briefly lost after his trek across the Pacific.

Kaoru heard the bedsprings squeak, and then the sound of small, bobby-socked feet touching the floor. Two seconds later the door creaked open. Shami scuttled out and made a beeline for the bathroom - where Ageha had placed a small bag of cat litter under the toilet seat to reinforce the stereotype. The door was about slam shut, but Kaoru placed a foot in the crack.

"Aggie, look I know you're disappointed and sad," he said as she turned away, the silhouette of her pigtails defiant against the window. "You thought I was the perfect big brother - and I'm not. But I'm not going to hurt you too, and I'm never going to hurt Hikaru again, either."

"And I believe him," he heard Hikaru's voice over his shoulder.

"Hikaru!" Kaoru spun around. "What are you -"

The older twin stood breathing deliberately and steeling his face so as not to bely pain, his hand on his lower ribs and his lips pressed into a pained smile. But it was a smile nonetheless, for all the world like that of a duck - if ducks could smile - just bobbing out of a pond with the mud rolling off its back.

"Come on" - he beckoned to Ageha as Kaoru retrieved his jaw from the floor. "Let's see if we can get that camera fixed. And maybe have a snack. I don't know about you, but I think some tea would be perfect right now."

…

The pot of water had boiled, and all three Hitachiins sat on stools around the kitchen island, three pestle-sized cups and a cast-iron teapot between them. Even a box of mochi had also been broken open, though Hikaru was the only who had dug in, reaching for sweet after sweet as he furrowed his brow as if in an aim to help along the remnants of the lens he was trying to dislodge with a screwdriver.

Ageha stared into her cup, her expression inscrutable, and the refrigerator sputtered to a halt. Kaoru sighed and looked up from his cup.

"Look, Aggie," he said. "If you hate me right now, I probably deserve it. We all know that violence is wrong, and I was wrong for using it. But more than that, where I really went wrong is letting it come this far. Hikaru and I have a long history of hurting each other. Not necessarily physically, but -"

"Y-you mean you ALWAYS feel this way about him?" Ageha's voice cut across his like a sword.

"No, Ageha. No. That's not what I meant." Kaoru bit down on his lip, nearly hard enough to draw blood, before fixing his eyes on his teacup again. "I'm just saying, we've had problems now and again over the years. There were things we tried to make each other do, and sacrifices we made for each other, and mistakes that we made. You're not old enough to hear about most of them yet, but suffice it to say, I never spoke up about it like I should have, and I let the poison built up inside of me."

He took a sip of tea, and put down the cup, the two-odd flakes of tea-leaf fluttering to the bottom.

"I guess what I mean is, violence is almost never just about that moment. It's something that builds over a long time in a sad heart. I guess I just didn't really realize that before today - how important it is to suck the poison out before it ends up hurting the ones you love."

He looked at his sister. Her face was still wan, but Shami had appeared on the scene again, and was rubbing his neck against the chair, having turned on the little motor in his chest.

"What do you think about that, Ageha?" - Hikaru asked, glancing up as the remnants of the lens came free with with a satisfying crack.

Shami's purrs grew more insistent, and Ageha slid out of her chair and squatted down. When she emerged above the table again, Shami was in her arms, suspended by the elbows like a ragdoll. Kaoru noticed that there was a small dark tuft in the middle of his white belly.

"I… I guess I just always thought you were the perfect couple," she said quietly, sitting back down as the cat kneaded a spot into her folded arms and settled down. "Like in the movies and like in that story about the two princes you told me when I was little. Like it was you against the world and you were invincible."

Hikaru chuckled.

"Well, I guess you'll be the first of your friends to know that life isn't like the movies - and that that story was a gross dumbing down of things that we made up to conform to a problematic model. It had its use in a time and a place, but…" He beamed an almost-big smile at Kaoru across the table.

"But we're not giving up," Kaoru added with a smile that grew markedly warmer as it spread across his face. "Having a good relationship is not about not having problems in the first place. What makes a hero is having a monster to fight, but often that monster is within yourself, and it keeps you from loving people like you should. A good relationship is about helping each other fight those monsters, but it's not easy. Now, ideally, we should've begun to do that a long time ago, but that's what we've been talking about tonight, and I have a feeling we'll be talking about it for a while still."

"Damn straight," added Hikaru, squinting at the pieces of lens in light to see if they fit together - which they did, almost perfectly. "Although, you know, Kaoru, I think we might need some superglue."


	21. Dancing in the Shadows

Hikaru walked through the door of the Ala Moana Hitachiin boutique with an undeniable sense purpose, his ribs much improved by dint of a few days' rest and painkillers. Ageha, Kaoru, Manny, and Matthew followed close behind, and as soon as Hikaru reached the sales desk, he pulled out his wallet.

"Good morning," he said brightly to the manager, and took out a dark metallic card, sliding it across the counter. "I am Hikaru Hitachiin, and I would like to pick out a dress for my friend. She's getting married today, so time is of the essence."

The sales manager, a Japanese girl about the twins' age with a smart bun and dark-rimmed glasses, stopped her mouth just short of falling open as she looked up from the till, then down at the card, and then at the face of the one who had handed it to her.

"Please," said Hikaru.

"Yes, sir, absolutely, just a moment" she said, having subdued her voice to betray just the tiniest, most residual bit of amazement. She pulled a small microphone out of her uniform's pocket, whispered something unintelligible, and within a minute sales consultants throughout the store either began to bite their lips, or gasped slightly, or, depending on the situation, started to look either very apologetic or very keen on getting their customers rung up and out the door. Within five minutes, the entire store was clear, and two sales reps had pulled the doors shut and lowered the curtains.

Hikaru turned to his friends with a satisfied raise of the eyebrows.

Manny shrugged.

"Oh, what, you've seen this kind of thing before?" Hikaru scoffed. "Come on, SOMEone's gotta be impressed! For my trouble? Please?"

"No, we are very impressed," Matthew affirmed - for before getting engaged to Manny Lesar of Haliburton stock, he had been the son of a midlevel insurance salesman.

"Yes, most certainly. It's definitely been a while," Kaoru added, nodding a little too earnestly.

"Now can we please see the dresses?" said Aggie, bouncing up and down.

…

Despite his penchant for crossdressing, Kaoru's repertoire of women's clothing was not very big, and comprised only five dresses. Two of them were Hitachiin silk of Shar's design, another was an elegant tailored suit fit for a press-conference or a gala, a fourth was a pale floral yukata he had gotten back in Japan to wear at summer festivals, and the last was a classic little black dress, which Kaoru was pressing against his figure as he cast a critical eye at himself in the mirror. At the end of the day, he thought, he had pretty legs for a woman. Especially when you could not see his hips, and could almost trick yourself into thinking he was a supermodel from the waist down.

In the past few days, he had admitted that he'd had a lot of latent anger toward Hikaru, including for things he did not consider his fault - everything from his eating disorder, to his feelings or inadequacy, to his missed chance for a "normal" existence. They held hands and both cried, and Kaoru said he still loved his brother and wanted to be with him. "If it's to prove a point," Hikaru had said, remembering what Kaoru had said about couples like them, "Then you don't have to." But Kaoru had said no, that wasn't the reason, though he refused to explain further.

And so Manny's wedding was approaching, and over the course of the following days they had decided it would be a beachside ceremony with "come barefoot - you don't know the pain of walking on heels in sand" as the only dress code. For organizational purposes - which boiled down to signing off on the "witness" line - Hikaru was to be the best man and Kaoru was to be the person of honor of all or no gender. To that end, Kaoru stood looking at himself in the mirror, holding the black dress by the hanger under his chin. Manny's friends who knew him from his time at UCLA had been the guinea pigs in his public coming out as gender fluid and biologically related to Hikaru, and, hailing from blue states as they all did, they were nothing but supportive. Of course, it would still be his first time wearing a dress to an event with people who had known him for an appreciable amount of time, and he would not have been surprised if Gaby or Kyouya at least raised an eyebrow. He was still lost in thought, pondering the pros and cons, when Hikaru came in, and he hardly noticed him walk up behind him and put his arms around his waist.

"Oh, hello, Hika -"

"Shhh…" The older twin pressed his lips against a pale neck, and Kaoru closed his eyes. It was not an unpleasant feeling, and part of him had missed it. In fact, no, he had missed it so much that it almost hurt to be touched again that way. It was as if the touch gave him back the ability to feel, and the pain and loneliness he had been repressing covered him like a flood.

"Are you thinking of wearing that to the wedding?" Hikaru asked, glancing his brother up and down in the mirror with a soft smile. "I think it would look beautiful on you."

"I -"

"It's okay." Hikaru gently squeezed his upper arms. "I'm not expecting to do anything for a while, but I missed this." He pressed another kiss just above the collarbone, and Kaoru's stomach fluttered. His stupid stomach, just like his stupid heart, which stubbornly refused to be subdued and made every time feel just like the first.

"I… missed this too, Hikaru."

"Mm, good," the older brother murmured, running his hands down Kaoru's torso and interlocking his fingers over his waist. "Good to know I'm not the only one."

"I guess I was considering it," Kaoru added after a moment, surveying himself from his long, pale calves to the cut of the dress around the collar. "But now that I think about it, people are bound to comment and ask questions, and I don't want to take the attention away from Manny - or to rub it in her face that my gender is as fluid as my sexuality. Not on her special day."

"Okay, whatever you think is best." Hikaru planted a kiss on his shoulder and found Kaoru's eyes in the mirror. In the sunlight, there were reminiscent of those of a large, orange cat.

…

Night had fallen, and what began as a champagne picnic under the stars on a beach turned into a blanket-tossing party. Manny had always said she wanted to be hoisted up on chairs when she married, as per Jewish tradition. But in the end she had declared that since she was as Waspy as they came it was probably not right. And at any rate, they did not have any chairs, so they had settled for bouncing the bride and groom up and down on a blanket, followed by each of the guests in turn. Since Hikaru was one of the few men in attendance, it fell on him to hold the side of the blanket for the better part of the proceedings. As a consequence, it was not until he finally stopped to crush a bottle of water and wipe the sweat from his brow that he noticed that Kaoru was standing a little way's away, with his shawl wrapped tight around his shoulders and looking a good deal like an unhappy topaz.

His pants still rolled up to his knee from an earlier dip in the ocean, Hikaru dropped the bottle back in the cooler and walked over to him.

"Kaoru, is everything okay?" he asked, trying to keep his voice level as he rolled his shirt sleeves down from his elbows - for away from the sweaty bodies and the laughter it was growing cold.

The makeshift trampoliners had regrouped, and Kaoru's eyes were fixed on York, who was a miniature copy of Manny and was being bounced up and down as she squealed in glee.

"It's always about you, Hikaru. Always."

"Kaoru -"

"No, it is. Everything is always about you. Whether it's how YOU'll feel if I say no, or what YOU can do to ride in on your white horse and solve everything you ruined, or -" He sighed and shook his head, pressing his fingers to the middle of his forehead. "What did we talk about - yesterday? What did I say about not upstaging Manny on her big day?"

"I -"

Hikaru hung his head. Several hours prior, he had indeed pooped on the rug. He had gotten up to make his best man speech - or what might have passed for one under the circumstances, since he knew Matthew reasonably well, but not so well that he would have been chosen for the job under any other circumstances. And then he had inadvertently turned it into a bleary-eyed declaration, how wonderful Kaoru had been for putting up with a goat like him all those years, and how much he longed to make him his life's companion in short order. He wasn't sure how it happened - it simply had, and since Kaoru had smiled and blushed like the good baby uke that he was, Hikaru had almost hazarded to think he was out of the woods.

But no, Kaoru never forgot. He was merely very good at not letting you know he remembered. And as York's bouncing, fecund form rose and fell against the pale-gold backdrop of his irises, Hikaru had the distinct feeling that he was burning up, along with every bridge they had built together.

"Kaoru, I'm so sorry…"

"Yes. Exactly. YOU're sorry."

Kaoru stooped down, and Hikaru saw that it was to pick up his shoes - a pair of white slingbacks he had paired with a fifties-style halter dress and a hairstyle like a flapper's bob. The chain at the nape of his neck caught the light from the flood-lamps lining the road. The older twin raked his brain to say something, but his mind was at once screaming and slipping into sleep - like what he imagined going into shock might have been like. Kaoru got up and began to walk away, barefoot across the sand.

Hikaru watched, locked into his body, as Kaoru drew farther and farther away, and just as he neared the top of the knoll, his skirt billowing in the breeze, the older twin felt something snap inside him. Suddenly, his brain was back, every neuron on fire, and he tried to run - but Kaoru was walking quickly, and when Hikaru tried to move he felt like his legs had been clapped in irons. He stumbled and fell halfway up the slope, and when he emerged onto the road, he saw the cars parked on the shoulder between the two-lane highway and the beach - empty cans and streamers still strung to the fender of one of them. Kaoru was walking quickly down the road, and the echo of his footsteps against the asphalt rose above the crash of the waves and the cries of the partiers below. Hikaru tried to run after him, but this time his feet felt like they were drowning in molasses. "Kaoru! Where are you going?!" - he tried to call - for despite all the food stands, the farm fields, and people's private front yards situated an arm's reach away from traffic, the road was one that passed for a state highway in Hawaii, and was even named after the archipelago's great unifier king. But his voice dried up in his throat. The darkness around him thickened, and suddenly the waves and the voices dropped off into the void. Only the clicks of Kaoru's heels remained, drawing farther away, and his form grew smaller and smaller, bobbing up and down like a moth in the light before vanishing altogether.

…

Hikaru sat bolt upright in bed. He had woken from a distinct feeling of choking, and his heart was still running full-speed to keep up with the lungs struggling against an imaginary blockage. The digital clock read 6:05, and the springs under him were still shaking. The room was silent. The sun shone from the direction it usually did in the morning, and as the five turned into a six, the leaves of the hanging plant moved back and forth in the breeze, a sheen of fresh, clean sunlight overlying the bedside table, the blankets, and the floor.

Kaoru would probably be asleep, having stayed up the night before helping with a corsage disaster, except… Except -

Except that was the point, wasn't it?! No, something as idiotic as this did not warrant - but Hikaru was already up, his feet padding over to Kaoru's bedroom all on their own accord. Indeed, if he had tried to grab onto the walls, even that might not have stopped them. He had to find Kaoru. He only managed to slow down and walk on his tiptoes a few feet shy of Kaoru's door, and let out a relieved sigh as he pushed on the doorknob and it opened noiselessly.

Kaoru was in bed, and had just turned over on his side, mumbling sleepily. Hikaru stepped inside, and felt his heart slow down.

Kaoru was there. And by all accounts, not unhappy with him. At least not yet. The younger twin's eyes drifted open, and he looked at Hikaru for a few seconds before smiling a bit.

"Hikaru? What's up? You okay?"

Hikaru's knees had begun to shake. He had woken his brother after all, and for that there would be no forgiveness.

"Kaoru, I…" he croaked.

No, you idiot! No! "I" is what got you in trouble in the first place.

"Hikaru, you look terrible," Kaoru said, his voice still thick with sleep. "Are you okay? Is it Ageha?"

"Uh - No…" Hikaru took a small step towards the bed, and felt his knees buckled under him. He caught himself just shy of sprawling on his face, and struggled over to the bed, burying his face and balling his fists into the covers. Kaoru sat up and scooted to the other side of the bed, gently peeling his brother's hands away from the covers.

"Hikaru. Talk to me. Please."

"I - I - I… I'm an asshole," Hikaru sobbed. "I'm a selfish, selfish asshole. You're right. It's always been about me. And I'm the one responsible for all your troubles. I'm the one who ruined you with what I did back when we were kids, and you should just kick me to the curb, because that's what I deserve! I can't even keep from starting every sentence with I-I-I-I-I -"

Hikaru's words devolved into wails, and he collapsed back on his haunches, pulling on Kaoru's arms until they hung like a suspension bridge between them.

Kaoru listened with a serene smile, and waited for Hikaru's sobs to subside.

"Well, you're right," he said matter-of-factly, blinking the remnants of sleep from his eyes. Thanks to many a late night on call, he was well-practiced at waking up quickly and orienting himself to the situation. "You are a selfish ass. And you're right - you do make my life more complicated than it otherwise would be. But that's always been the case, so I'm not sure why you feel I should do anything about it all of a sudden."

Hikaru sat up, looking into his brother's face with unadulterated incredulity.

"B-but I'm a… I mean, what I did… Nothing can change that. And it affects you. I know it affects you to this day. Your eating disorder, how it's come back… And I'm the REASON it came back…" Hikaru's voice began to falter, his chest falling.

"Well, that's true too," he heard Kaoru's voice above him, calm as could be. "But I still see no reason to kick you to the curb, as you say. After all, if I did that, it would be like giving you the death penalty. You'd be dead, but you wouldn't learn anything." He chuckled. "No, I think it would be far more instructive to keep you around and alive, so you can observe the fruits of your so-called labors every day."

Kaoru's eyes were smiling. If Hikaru's legs had not turned to jelly minutes ago, they would have done right then.

"And besides," Kaoru went on. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. You think I'M not a selfish fuck?" He gave a laugh that barely made it past his throat. "The sacrifices I made - they weren't for you. They were for me. I mean, when it comes down to it, what have I EVER really given you, beyond a blow job here and there? AND I caused you serious physical harm."

"Kaoru, don't be silly, you've given me everything…"

"Really."

"You don't NEED to do anything. All I need from you is a smile and a kiss, and for you to listen to me after a long day. I swear. That's all I'll ever need from you."

The older Hitachiin had lowered his eyes again as he spoke, and when he raised them up again, Kaoru's were waiting, and they were moist.

…

The jazzy sounds of the piano carried across the restaurant hall, and the clink of wine glasses and forks mixed with the sound of the evening surf. The city, exhausted by the heat of the day, had curled up on the sand like a giant komodo dragon, its scales catching the starlight and reflecting in the bay. Manchester Lesar-Tachibana sat in her Hitachiin gown with her husband by her side, and had just finished off the last of her wine. She had removed her heels under the table, for it had been a long day and was not over yet.

Whatever anyone said, Manny loved her husband, even though she had not fallen for him immediately. Instead, when they had been dating for about a year, she had simply decided not to let Kaoru dominate her thoughts anymore. She never thought she would love anyone as well as she had done Kaoru, and was pretty proud of herself for hiding it so well under the fangirl guise all those years. But then again, she also never thought she would love anyone like she loved her previous boyfriend, whom she still called "R" even in her own mind. Indeed, if her soul had a physical form, it might have been the Archbishop's Bridge in Paris, covered in little locks that carried on as scars long after the memories were gone. She took pride in her collection of scars, and her collection of locks, and thought it made her stronger. But scars and locks were also all they were -- and there was no use crying over them.

Yes, she was fortunate. Blessed, really. And that day she had gone forward with no regrets, surrounded by the people who loved her. She eyed the dance floor, for almost everyone else had gotten up, and cast her eyes from group to group: from her still-good-friend Gaby, who stood on her husband Kyouya's feet as they danced and, like the power-couple that they were, debated something of vital importance even then - to York, carrying on the flirtatious family legacy, dancing with someone she just met - to the Hitachiin twins. Kaoru was wearing a little black dress, and they were dancing in the shadows, like some people always did.


End file.
